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By  the  Same  Author 


The  Great  Illusion 

A  Study  of  the  Relation  of  Military  Power  in  Nations  to  their 
Economic  and  Social  Advantages.     12mo.     $1.00  net 

Arms  and  Industry 

A  Study  of  the  Foundations  of  International  Polity 

In  Preparation: 

The  Citizen  and  Society 

First  Principles  of  their  Relationship 


Arms  and  Industry 

A  Study  of  the  Foundations  of 
International  Polity 


By 
Norman   Angell 

Author  of  "The  Great  Illusion,"  etc. 


G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons 

New  York  and  London 

^be  Itnfcfierbocftet  ptesd 

1914 


Copyright,  19 14 

BY 

G.  P.  PUTNAM'S   SONS 


Vbe  fmicberbocfter  ptcu,  Itew  fiork 


College 
Ijbrary 


PREFACE  TO  AMERICAN  EDITION 

It  is  an  integral  part  of  the  arguments  here  pre- 
sented that  certain  underlying  problems  of  organ- 
ized society — with  which  this  book  attempts  to  deal 
— concern  Americans  as  deeply  as  they  concern  any 
of  the  other  groups  composing  that  society.  For 
I  have  attempted  here  to  show  that  the  civilized 
world  has  become,  not  merely  economically,  but 
morally  and  intellectually,  interdependent.  If 
the  price  of  money  in  Europe,  and  the  credit  condi- 
tions generally  there,  concern  in  a  very  vital  and 
concrete  fashion  American  capitalists  and  workmen 
who  may  have  no  visible  relation  with  Europe  at 
all,  so  equally  is  the  social  reformer  concerned  with 
the  direction  which  may  be  given  by  the  drift  of 
Eiiropean  politics  to  European  thought,  a  fact 
very  visibly  illustrated  of  course  in  such  matters 
as  Socialism,  Syndicalism,  class  war,  the  relations 
of  the  sexes,  religion.  Never  in  written  history 
has  any  considerable  intellectual  fermentation 
been  set  up  in  one  group  without  ultimately 
affecting  all.  Less  than  ever  to-day  can  such 
fermentation  take  account  of  frontiers.  Ameri- 
can society  as  much  as  any  will  be  affected  by 
the  operations  throughout  the  world  of  the  forces 
here  dealt  with. 

/J 


Preface  to  American  Edition 

Although  the  six  chapters  of  this  book  appear 
in  the  form  of  various  addresses  deHvered  to 
audiences  having  apparently  as  little  in  common 
as  those  at  the  British  Association  and  a  group  of 
German  universities,  the  Institute  of  Bankers 
of  Great  Britain  and  the  Royal  United  Service 
Institution  of  that  country,  the  papers  have  been 
so  selected  as  to  represent  the  natural  development 
and  elaboration  of  an  imderlying  general  principle 
and  to  make  a  connected  whole.  I  have  at- 
tempted to  render  this  unity  still  plainer  by  sum- 
marizing the  entire  argument  in  an  introductory 
chapter  of  some  length. 

As  each  paper  was  in  its  original  form  an  inde- 
pendent production,  there  is  necessarily  some  slight 
repetition  of  argument  and  illustration.  I  have 
been  at  no  special  pains  to  correct  this.  It  is  a 
somewhat  transparent  literary  convention  that  a 
reader,  in  following  an  argument  through  several 
hundred  pages,  will  always  recall  in  the  latter  part 
the  precise  details  of  a  fact  or  illustration  given  in 
an  earlier  part,  or  will  refer  thereto;  and  that  on  no 
account  should  such  fact  or  illustration  be  re- 
peated. I  have  deemed  it  a  service  to  the  reader 
and  an  economy  of  his  attention  to  disregard  this 
convention  in  one  or  two  cases. 

I  am  indebted  to  the  editors  of  the  Journal  of  the 
Royal  United  Service  Institution  and  the  Journal  of 
the  Institute  of  Bankers  for  permission  to  reprint 
addresses  which  have  appeared  in  their  publica- 
tions, and  to  Messrs.  Watts  and  Co.  of  London  for 


Preface  to  American  Edition 

permission  to  reprint  a  portion  of  the  Conway 
Memorial  address  delivered  at  South  Place 
Institute. 

I  am  glad  to  take  this  opportunity  of  acknow- 
ledging my  very  deep  sense  of  gratitude  and 
indebtedness  to  more  friends  than  I  can  mention, 
in  England,  Germany,  France,  and  America,  who, 
since  the  appearance  of  an  earlier  woric  of  mine  in 
1910,  have  helped  me  with  suggestions,  advice, 
and  criticism.  To  certain  friends  in  the  universi- 
ties of  those  coimtries  I  am  in  a  special  sense  in- 
debted, notably,  in  America,  to  Presidents  Nicholas 
Murray  Butler  of  Columbia  and  David  Starr  Jor- 
dan of  Stanford .  Dr.  George  W.  Nasmyth  has  ren- 
dered invaluable  assistance  in  the  revision  of  proof. 
As  to  the  larger  number  who  in  England,  Germany, 
and  America  during  that  period  have  made  great 
personal  sacrifices  to  encovirage  and  organize  in  a 
definite  way  the  study  of  the  subjects  dealt  with 
here,  it  would  be  impertinent  and  fatuous  in  an 
author  to  assume  that  thanks  are  due  from  him. 
I  happen  to  know  how  great  in  many  cases  those 
sacrifices  have  been,  but  they  have  been  made  on 
behalf  of  a  general  cause  of  intellectual  sanitation 
to  which  my  own  works  are,  happily,  but  a  small 
contribution. 

Norman  Angell. 

London, 
January,  1914. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

INTRODUCTORY  SUMMARY  OF  ARGUMENT        .   ix-xlv 
PREFACE  TO  AMERICAN  EDITION        .         .    xlvii-xlix 


THE    CASE    FOR    THE    REVISION    OF    CERTAIN 

PRINCIPLES  OF  STATECRAFT       .  .         .    1-37 

It  is  not  mainly  the  more  visible  evils  of  war  and  arma- 
ments which  give  the  greatest  value  to  the  study  of  the 
accepted  theories  of  international  polity,  but  the  fact  that 
the  fundamental  misunderstanding  of  any  large  human 
issue  involves  the  misunderstanding  in  some  degree  of  all 
human  relations.  The  continued  justification  of  the  mili- 
tary form  of  international  society  has  involved  perpetuat- 
ing a  political  philosophy  which  misrepresents  the  basic 
principles  of  human  association  and  co-operation,  a  dis- 
tortion which  has  widespread  moral  results  as  affecting 
not  merely  the  form  of  our  social  structures  within  the 
nation,  but  our  relative  valuation  of  the  qualities  of 
human  character ;  and  large  material  results  in  diminishing 
the  effectiveness  of  that  exploitation  of  the  earth  by  which 
we  wring  our  subsistence  from  nature.  The  fundamental 
misconception  is  that  concerning  the  part  that  physical 
coercion  plays  in  co-operation.  The  interdependence  which 
necessarily  comes  of  the  division  of  labour  involves  a  pro- 
gressive decline  in  the  effectiveness  of  physical  coercion. 
The  r61e  of  transport  and  intercommunication  in  those 
factors.  The  application  of  these  principles  to  typical 
problems  of  modem  statecraft.  We  are  dealing  with  ideas 
common  to  the  whole  Western  world,  and  to  the  reform 
of  such  ideas  each  nation  must  contribute  its  quota,  or 
Hi 


iv  Contents 

PAGE 

reform  will  not  be  possible.  We  all  owe  our  civilization  to 
foreigners.  Not  merely  the  material,  but  the  moral  and 
intellectual,  development  of  society  must  necessarily  be 
international. 

II 

MORAL    AND    MATERIAL    FACTORS    IN    INTER- 
NATIONAL POLITICS  ....         38-85 

Morally  the  existing  statecraft  is  cannibalistic,  and  no  new 
conception  could  possibly  be  more  sordid.  The  alleged 
"sordidness"  of  considering  economic  results  in  national 
policy  due  to  mental  confusion.  The  "well-being  of 
society"  is  the  final  sanction,  whether  in  politics,  morals, 
or  religious  codes.  Whatever  the  "well-being  of  society" 
may  mean,  economics  are  a  part  of  the  problem,  as  they 
are  a  part  of  morality,  and  morality  of  economics.  The 
development  of  religious  idealism  in  this  sense,  and  its 
political  parallel.  Bridging  the  imaginary  gulf  between 
interest  and  morality,  idealism  and  reason.  The  relation 
of  emotion  and  intuition  to  rationalism  in  political  aims. 
The  important  truths  of  life  clearly  visible  without  great 
learning  if  not  obscured  by  false  theories.  The  common 
mind  now  seizing  as  self-evident  truths  which  men  of 
learning  in  the  past  could  not  see.  The  hope  for  a 
similar  development  of  the  common  mind  in  the  field 
of  politics.  Keeping  of  the  peace  does  not  involve  any 
weakening  of  the  passion  to  defend  our  right,  but  a 
growth  of  respect  for  the  rights  of  others.  Those  who 
do  not  believe  in  coercion  necessarily  believe  in  defence. 
Prevailing  confusion  between  the  use  of  force  and  the 
neutralization  of  force.  The  basis  of  civilization  is  a  con- 
vention not  to  use  force,  and  this  essential  to  the  growth  of 
understanding  in  societies.  The  growing  ineffectiveness 
of  physical  coercion  illustrated  by  the  abandonment  of  its 
use  by  Governments  for  the  imposition  of  dogma,  a  highly- 
valued  prerogative,  and  by  its  present  growing  ineffective- 
ness in  the  destruction  of  nationality.  The  argument  that, 
as  human  passion  will  always  override  a  rationally-con- 


Contents  v 

PAGE 

ceived  recognition  of  right,  it  serves  no  purpose  to  reason 
about  the  right,  makes  man  the  helpless  puppet  of  external 
forces,  and  is  an  abdication  of  his  place  in  nature,  the 
surrender  of  his  sotd. 


Ill 

THE     INFLUENCE     OF     CREDIT    UPON    INTER- 
NATIONAL RELATIONS       ....       86-148 

The  object  of  this  paper  is  to  show  that  international 
credit  has  endowed  the  social  body  of  mankind — organized 
society — with  a  highly-developed  system  of  sensory  nerves, 
a  means  by  which  serious  damage  to  one  part  is  immedi- 
ately made  known  to  the  rest,  a  consciousness  of  which  in 
the  case  of  an  animal  organism  we  should  call  pain.  The  fact 
that  this  endowment  with  means  of  avoiding  damage  gives 
it  better  vital  control,  a  means  of  better  conscious  adapta- 
tion, is  itself  a  demonstration  that  the  scattered  parts  do  in 
truth  form  one  whole,  are  interdependent,  and  is  neces- 
sarily destructive  of  the  old  idea  that  one  part  could  profit 
by  the  damage  of  another,  still  less  live  parasitically  upon 
it.  The  fact  of  this  interdependence,  its  nature,  the 
processes  it  involves  (herein  described),  are  all  but  com- 
pletely ignored  by  European  statesmen,  with  consequent 
havoc  to  their  policies,  which  in  the  characteristic  cases 
have  had  results  the  exact  contrary  to  those  aimed  at.  The 
increasing  visibility  of  this  human  solidarity — a  solidarity 
not  merely  of  communities  on  opposite  sides  of  the  world, 
but  of  the  present  with  the  past  and  the  future — must  have 
profound  moral  as  well  as  material  results. 

IV 

THE  PLACE  OF    MILITARY  FORCE   IN   MODERN 

STATECRAFT 149-172 

Summarizing  by  a  series  of  illustrations  the  actual  political 
conditions  which  have  resulted  from  the  operation  of  the 
principles  described  and  elaborated  in  the  preceding  papers 
the  part  which  still  remains  for  military  force  usefully  to 


vi  Contents 

PAGB 

play  in  modern  statecraft  is  here  indicated.  That  fvinction 
cannot  advantageously  be  predatory  or  parasitic;  it  can 
now  play  no  part  in  the  vital  competitive  struggle  of  man- 
kind. Its  socially  fertile  use  is  the  neutralization  of  force  in 
society;  by  making  it  impossible  for  other  commvmities 
to  use  their  force  against  us — defence;  or  as  a  function  of 
police  (as  in  India  or  Egypt),  where  its  purpose,  like  the 
purpose  of  all  police,  is  to  prevent  the  vmits  of  a  still  un- 
developed society  using  their  force  one  against  the  other — 
"maintaining  order."  English  policy,  in  common  with 
that  of  European  nations,  has  not,  even  in  the  quite  recent 
past,  given  indication  of  having  been  prompted  by  any  very 
clear  conception  of  the  essential  difference  in  these  two 
types  of  political  action,  with  results  that  are  now  by  all 
admitted  to  have  been  regrettable. 


"TWO  KEELS  TO  ONE  NOT  ENOUGH"  .         .     173-207 

The  treatment  of  defence  as  a  purely  military  problem 
(basing  national  security  simply  on  the  fact  of  being 
stronger  than  your  prospective  rival)  must  always  end  in 
futility  and  stultification.  War  or  its  prospect  is  a  matter 
of  two  parties,  each  of  whom  is  entitled  to  defend  itself  in 
the  same  way.  Thus,  the  military  solution  for  achieving 
security  for  two  parties  likely  to  quarrel  is  for  each  to  be 
stronger  than  the  other.  So  long  as  we  persist  in  treating 
a  problem  of  two  parties  in  terms  of  one,  the  efforts  at 
security  will  always  end  by  creating  a  situation  of  great 
danger.  The  way  out  of  this  impasse  has  already  been 
shown  in  the  case  of  our  very  troublesome  and  difficult 
relations  with  the  United  States,  involving  more  vital 
issues  than  those  with  any  other  country,  and  with  our 
colonies. 

VI 

CONCERNING    THE    INTERNATIONAL    POLITY 

MOVEMENT 208-229 

The  effort  that  has  been  made  by  those  who  desire  to  see 
the  principles  elaborated  here  affect  practical  politics  in 


Contents  vii 

PAGE 

our  time  has  not  been  inspired  by  hostility  to  the  older 
organised  Peace  Movement.  It  is  certain,  however,  that 
these  ideas  will  appeal  most  eflfectively  to  public  opinion 
if  they  come  as  a  conception  of  political  doctrine  quite  dis- 
tinct from  pleas  of  a  nature  with  which  the  public  believe 
themselves  to  be  already  familiar,  and  to  which  strong  pre- 
judices attach.  The  distinction  between  the  older  and 
newer  Pacifist  conceptions  is,  moreover,  real  and  vital,  and 
not  merely  tactical.  In  what  it  consists.  The  hope  of  the 
newer  method  founded  upon  clear  historical  indications. 
The  need  for  a  sound  philosophical  foundation  for  the 
Political  Reformation  which  we  may  hope  is  to  be  the  out- 
standing work  of  our  generation. 

Index 235 


INTRODUCTORY  SUMMARY  OP 
ARGUMENT 

The  argument  developed  in  this  book  attempts 
to  show  that  the  poHtical  ideas  which  at  present 
shape  the  conduct  and  determine  the  attitude  of 
one  State  to  another  in  Europe,  and  give  to  inter- 
national relationship  its  present  character,  are 
erroneous,  despite  their  general  acceptance  as 
self-evident  and  axiomatic;  that  they  are  the 
outcome  of  certain  abstract  theories  at  variance 
with  the  facts. 

This  does  not  necessarily  imply  that  the  states- 
men who  pursue  a  particular  policy,  or  the  public 
who  endorse  it,  do  so  because  they  have  well- 
defined  principles  of  action  based  upon  clearly-con- 
ceived theorems.  But  their  action  is  nevertheless 
the  result  of  certain  general  ideas  as  to  what  is 
to  the  advantage  of  their  country,  and  as  to  the 
means  by  which  that  advantage  can  be  secured; 
and  it  is  the  supremacy  of  such  ideas  that  creates 
the  present  condition  of  international  society,  just 
as  it  is  the  prevailing  ideas  among  the  imits  which 
compose  any  society,  whether  that  of  a  cannibal 
island  or  a  Catholic  nunnery,  which  determine 
its  character.  The  story  of  civilization  is  the 
story  of  the  development  of  ideas :  the  Palaeolithic 


X  Introductory  Summary 

man  of  Northern  Europe  was  physically  a  much 
finer  man  than  the  modem  Londoner,  as  is, 
indeed,  the  present-day  Cameroon  cannibal.  The 
qualities  which  explain  the  differences  between 
their  respective  social  states  are  intellectual  and 
moral. 

The  fundamental  ideas  to  which  we  must  go 
for  any  comprehensive  explanation  of  international 
politics  are  also,  of  course,  those  which  lie  at  the 
base  of  political  behaviour  within  the  nation, 
though  in  this  case  they  are  modified  by  influences 
which  do  not  operate  in  the  case  of  relations 
between  separate  communities.  But  it  is  pre- 
cisely because  the  conceptions  here  dealt  with 
concern  in  some  degree  all  forms  of  political  action 
that  their  study  has  a  range  of  practical  interest 
much  wider  than  that  of  the  problems  embodied 
in  the  term  "international  politics."  For  not 
only  do  current  misconceptions  prompt  in  the 
international  field  political  action  which  by 
luiiversal  consent  defeats  the  end  which  it  is 
intended  to  promote  (such  as  the  safety  and 
material  and  moral  well-being  of  the  respective 
nations),  and  produces  such  visible  evils  as  war 
and  armaments,  but  the  misconceptions  also  give 
rise  to  less  visible  but  more  profoimd  evils  in  the 
internal  structure  of  nations,  in  the  forms  of 
government,  the  methods  of  administration,  the 
means  employed  to  achieve  social  ends,  the  direc- 
tion of  political  ideals  and  emotions,  the  nature  of 
the  defined  ideas  and  the  vindefined  instincts  that 


Introductory  Summary  xi 

affect  deeply  the  character  of  men's  relations  to 
each  other  and  to  nature,  and  affect  in  consequence 
their  moral  quality  generally. 

The  scope  of  the  present  book,  however,  is 
limited  to  showing  the  nature  of  the  misconcep- 
tions in  so  far  as  international  action  is  concerned, 
and  only  so  far  as  it  may  be  necessary  for  that 
purpose  to  make  clear  their  philosophical  founda- 
tion is  their  wider  bearing  touched  upon. 

What  are  the  tenets  of  that  diplomatic  orthodoxy 
here  challenged?  In  order  to  render  the  issue 
clear,  I  have  summarized  their  best  expression  as 
one  may  find  it,  not  merely  in  the  works  of  those 
special  authorities  on  diplomacy  and  polity,  of 
which  Machiavelli  was  the  prototype,  but  in  the 
declarations  of  European  statesmen  and  public 
men  dealing  with  actual  problems,  in  current 
journalism  of  the  better  sort,  and  generally  in  that 
part  of  the  discussion  of  the  subject  most  likely  to 
represent  public  opinion  and  affect  policy.  In 
England,  France,  Germany,  or  America,  any 
such  discussion  of  international  problems  would 
imply  conceptions  which  include  the  following 
assimiptions: 

' '  The  fact  that  each  nation  is  a  sovereign  independent 
entity  involves  the  further  fact  that  each  is  dependent 
for  the  protection  of  its  rights  and  interests  against  the 
attacks  of  others  upon  its  own  force.  The  relinquish- 
ment of  the  use  of  force  by  any  one  State  would  be 
equivalent  to  acquiescence  in  possible  wrong;  should  a 
Stronger  State  take  against  ourselves  or  others  an 


xii  Introductory  Summary 

action  which  we  believe  wrong,  we  should  have  no 
means  of  supporting  the  right  as  against  it.  And  as, 
presumably,  that  State  least  likely  to  be  right  would 
be  the  most  likely  to  use  force,  the  attempt  to  vindi- 
cate morality  by  refusing  to  use  force  would  be  to 
defeat  the  aim  which  prompted  such  a  policy. 

"  The  fact  that  each  unit  in  the  'Society'  of  nations 
is  an  independent  entity  of  increasing  needs  and  popu- 
lation in  a  world  of  limited  space  and  opportunity 
involves  the  further  fact  that  each  must  compete  with 
the  rest  for  sustenance  and  as  that  implies,  for  life 
itself.  There  may  not  be  direct  preying  one  upon  the 
other,  but  the  pre-emption  of  space  and  opportunity 
by  the  strong  means  the  exclusion  (which  is  equivalent 
to  the  destruction)  of  the  weak,  so  that  the  efficiency 
of  one  nation  in  its  occupation  or  exploitation  of  the 
earth  involves,  with  however  little  intention  or  desire, 
the  loss  and  damage,  potential  or  actual,  of  another, 
a  condition  which  has  its  parallel  in  the  economic 
competition  of  individuals,  by  which  the  capacity  and 
energy  of  one  trader  or  maniif acturer  means  suffering 
to  the  workpeople  and  dependents  of  a  less  capable 
rival.  This  situation  is  illustrated  very  visibly  by 
such  incidents  of  the  Protectionist  System  (supported 
by  some  of  the  most  humane  and  civilized  nations  of 
the  world)  as  that  by  which  the  promotion  of  industry 
in  one  country  creates  areas  of  starvation  in  another, 
and  by  such  incidents  of  modem  policy  as  that  by 
which  the  surplus  population  of  an  overcrowded 
country  like  India  is  excluded  from  a  relatively  empty 
country  like  Australia.  These  economic,  social,  and 
political  phenomena,  accepted  as  inevitable  incidents 
of  human  struggle,  reconcile  us  to  a  conception  of  in- 
ternational society  in  which  the  units  are,  because 


Introductory  Summary  xiii 

sovereign  and  independent,  either  passively  and  in- 
directly, or  actively  and  directly,  rival  and  predatory. 
The  survival  of  any  given  unit  depends  in  the  last 
resort  upon  the  relative  degree  of  physical  force  which 
it  is  able  to  exercise  against  competitors,  whereby  to 
impose  its  own  or  resist  another's  exploitation  of  the 
earth,  just  as  on  the  moral  side  force  is  necessary  to 
impose  our  view  of  right  as  against  a  hostile  view  if  we 
are  unwilling  to  acquiesce  in  what  we  believe  to  be 
wrong. 

"  In  other  words,  an  international  society,  in  the 
sense  of  a  society  such  as  exists  within  the  frontiers  of 
civilized  States,  does  not  exist  and  cannot,  so  long  as 
nations  are  sovereign  and  independent.  For,  in  the 
case  of  communities  within  the  respective  States, 
society  exists  by  virtue  of  the  surrender  of  some  part  of 
the  independence  and  sovereignty  of  the  unit — the 
individual — to  the  sovereignty  of  the  State,  which 
exercises  physical  force  for  the  purpose  of  establishing 
the  common  will  in  the  shape  of  law,  restraining  thus 
the  predatory  instincts  of  the  units.  But  the  society 
of  nations  possesses  no  corresponding  supreme  sanc- 
tion and  sovereignty.  Moreover,  that  degree  of  unity 
in  aim  and  in  social  and  moral  ideas  which  alone  in 
the  case  of  national  communities  renders  possible  a 
common  sanction  and  sovereignty  does  not  exist  at 
present  as  between  separate  nations;  indeed,  the  fact 
of  their  separate  existence  is  due  precisely  to  the 
absence  of  such  unity  and  to  the  desire  for  indepen- 
dence— a  desire  which  has  been  accentuated  in  recent 
years,  as  witness  the  intensification  of  *  Nationality ' 
and  the  determination  of  the  younger  communities  to 
protect  themselves  from  alien,  and  especially  Asiatic, 
admixture.     The   surrender,    therefore,    of   national 


xiv  Introductory  Summary 

independence  and  sovereignty  to  any  degree  corre- 
sponding to  the  surrender  of  independence  which  takes 
place  in  the  case  of  citizens  of  the  same  State,  is  a  price 
much  higher  than  that  which  the  progressive  nations 
of  the  world  are  prepared  to  pay  for  the  purpose  of 
securing  a  cosmopolitan  State  exercising  that  supreme 
sanction  of  physical  force  which  is  the  necessary  basis 
of  any  real  society.  If  the  alternative  is  between  two 
orders — one  in  which  each  struggles  for  the  preserva- 
tion of  its  distinctive  national  ideals  and  life,  and  the 
advantages  that  go  with  the  successful  imposition  of 
its  strength ;  and  the  other  in  which,  for  the  purpose  of 
being  relieved  of  the  risks  and  costs  of  struggle,  it 
surrenders  in  favour  of  a  more  cosmopolitan  ideal,  in 
some  degree,  its  distinctive  and  special  social  values 
and,  entirely,  the  advantages  given  by  its  power  over 
others — it  is  certain  that  the  stronger  nations  will 
choose  the  former  alternative.  Materially  and  morally 
they  will  deem  the  risks  of  competition  and  struggle  to 
be  preferable  to  the  security  which  would  come  of 
a  common  pooling  and  distribution  by  consent.  To 
the  weak  only  would  such  appeal.  The  strong  will 
naturally  prefer  to  see  as  much  international  law  and 
civilized  intercourse  as  may  be  between  nations  main- 
tained, as  now,  by  virtue  of  an  equilibrium  of  forces 
sufficiently  stable  to  insure  that  it  will  not  be  disturbed 
save  on  vital  issues — always,  however,  in  danger  of 
such  disturbance,  owing  to  the  fact  that  a  preponder- 
ance of  force  on  the  part  of  one  unit  can  be  used  in 
relation  to  the  rest  to  tilt  the  balance  of  advantage  in 
its  favour,  the  central  fact  which  necessarily  makes  the 
whole  system  one  in  which  physical  force  is  the  ulti- 
mate appeal,  the  one  condition  of  sutvival  economi- 
cally, socially,  and  morally." 


Introductory  Summary  xv 

The  object  of  the  six  papers  of  which  this  book 
is  composed  is  to  show,  step  by  step,  that  this 
theory  ignores  the  facts  or  is  based  upon  a  demon- 
strable misreading  of  them. 

Save  only  in  a  narrow  juridical  sense,  which,  as 
will  be  indicated,  does  not  affect  the  vital  functions 
of  society,  the  nations  which  form  the  European 
commimity  are  not  sovereign,  nor  independent,  nor 
entities,  nor  rival,  nor  advantageously  predatory; 
nor  does  the  exercise  or  possession  of  the  means  of 
physical  coercion  determine  the  relative  advantage 
of  each;  nor  is  physical  coercion  within  their 
borders  the  ultimate  sanction  of  social  organization, 
of  law  and  justice.  MiHtary  power  is  irrele- 
vant to  the  promotion  of  the  aims,  moral  and 
material,  postulated  in  that  statement  of  political 
principles  which  I  have  just  given. 

To  reaUze  how  deep-set  is  the  fallacy  involved 
therein,  it  is  necessary  to  have  in  mind  something 
of  the  process  by  which  mankind  maintains  its  life 
and  increases  its  numbers  in  the  world — for  it  is  the 
only  species  of  living  thing  which  by  its  own 
efforts  permanently  increases  its  relative  place  in 
nature,  the  only  one  which  by  its  own  efforts 
directly  affects  the  means  of  subsistence  available 
for  it.  For  birds  or  beasts  or  fishes,  the  quantity 
of  food  available  in  Nature  is  a  fixed  quantity 
unaffected  by  their  efforts.  The  birds  do  not 
breed  and  protect  earth-worms,  the  rabbits  do  not 
cultivate  plants.*     The  efforts  of  the  individual 

*  I  am  aware,  of  course,  that  there  are  rudimentary  forms  of 


xvi  Introductory  Summary 

are  therefore  limited  to  assuring  for  itself  the 
largest  possible  share  of  the  fixed  quantity  avail- 
able for  the  species.  In  such  conditions,  success 
of  one  individual  may  mean  deprivation  for 
another.  Struggle  between  them  (though,  in- 
cidentally, it  seldom  takes  the  form  of  members 
of  the  same  species  preying  directly  upon  one 
another)  is  a  necessary  condition  of  survival. 
But  man  has  increased  his  means  of  subsistence 
and  his  chances  of  survival  by  conscious  adjust- 
ment of  the  forces  of  Nature,  by  directing  forces, 
that  would  otherwise  destroy  him,  to  his  own 
ends.  He  repels  one  force,  the  rain  or  snow  or 
cold,  by  using  others — trees  for  houses,  coal  for 
fuel.  He  thus  turns  Nature  against  herself.  But 
he  can  only  do  this  thanks  to  one  fact — that  he  is, 
by  his  intelligence,  able  to  create  a  union  of  forces 
by  co-operating  with  his  fellows.  If  men  acted 
as  isolated  units,  this  effective  fight  against  the 
forces  of  Natiire  would  not  be  possible.  The  condi- 
tion of  man  would  be  that  of  any  other  animal  that 
neither  grows  its  food  nor  makes  its  clothes  nor 
warms  its  dwelling.*  But  as  soon  as  this  union 
takes  place,  the  co-operation  of  other  members  of 
his  species  becomes  of  more  value  to  him  than 
their  disappearance  or  destruction.  Indeed,  as 
these  pages  show,  the  process  of  co-operation 
rapidly  creates  a  condition  in  which,  if  one  of  two 
parties  is  to  survive,  both  must  survive;  if  one 

co-operation  among  animals,  but  the  contrast  is  more  than  suffi- 
ciently true  for  illustration.  *  See  pp.  16-22  seq. 


Introductory  Summary  xvii 

perishes,  both  perish.*  Thus  a  smalt  but  feebly 
co-operating  population  (like  the  Indian  tribes 
of  North  America)  had  less  of  subsistence  than  a 
population  many  himdred  times  as  great  occupying 
the  same  space,  and  having  only  the  same  natural 
sources  available,  but  having  a  much  more  highly 
developed  capacity  for  co-operation. f 

Now,  the  governing  method  of  co-operation 
must  be  division  of  labour,  and  that  method 
necessarily  impUes  interdependence  between  those 
party  to  it ;  the  mechanical  forces  which  are  neces- 
sarily created  by  a  condition  of  interdependence 
progressively  nullify  the  effectiveness  of  physical 
coercion  employed  by  either  party  against  the 
other.  To  the  extent  to  which  a  party  possessing 
means  of  physical  force  has  need  of  the  party 
against  which  he  exercises  them,  they  tend  to 
become  ineffective.  If  the  dependence  is  merely 
of  a  simple  and  partial  kind,  like  that  of  a  slave 
owner  upon  slaves  that  he  can  readily  replace, 
and  of  whom  he  demands  merely  physical  exertion, 
the  operation  of  physical  compulsion  may  be  ef- 
fective for  his  relatively  simple  purpose.  He  can, 
if  he  has  been  more  intelHgent  than  they  in  organiz- 
ing means  of  protection,  kill  them  if  they  refuse 
to  work.  But  if  the  dependence  is  more  complete, 
so  that  an  absolutely  essential  laboiir  is  done  by 
slaves  who  cannot  be  replaced,  he  cannot  kill  them 
and  his  force  is  limited ;  if  the  labour  is  of  a  complex 
kind  demanding  wide  intelligence,  like  scientific 

*  See  p.  1 8  seq.  f  See  pp.  156-157  seq. 


xviii         Introductory  Summary 

research,  or  elaborate  organization  and  administra- 
tion, the  effectiveness  of  physical  force  declines  by- 
reason  of  another  order  of  factors,  until,  as  the  com- 
plexity and  interdependence  increase,  the  element  of 
physical  force  disappears  and  the  sanction  of  phy- 
sical compulsion  is  gradually  replaced  by  another.* 

Now,  these  two  factors — the  need  for  widespread 
co-operation  to  find  our  sustenance,  and  the  decline 
in  the  effectiveness  of  physical  force  as  a  means  of 
securing  services  in  a  co-operative  process  of  any 
complexity — have  done  two  things:  they  have 
destroyed  not  merely  the  economic,  but  the  moral 
and  intellectual  unity  and  homogeneity  of  States ; 
and  they  have  rendered  the  exercise  of  force  by 
one  State  against  another,  for  economic,  moral, 
or  intellectual  purposes,  futile,  because  ineffective 
and  irrelevant  to  the  end  in  view.f 

Co-operation  between  nations  has  become  essen- 
tial for  the  very  Hfe  of  their  peoples.  J  But  that 
co-operation  does  not  take  place  as  between  States 
at  all.  A  trading  corporation  "Britain"  does 
not  buy  cotton  from  another  corporation  "Amer- 
ica." A  manufacturer  in  Manchester  strikes  a 
bargain  with  a  merchant  in  LxDuisiana  in  order  to 
keep  a  bargain  with  a  dyer  in  Germany,  and  three 
or  a  much  larger  number  of  parties  enter  into 
virtual,  or  perhaps  actual,  contract,  and  form  a 
mutually  dependent  economic  commimity  (num- 
bering, it  may  be,  with  the  work  people  in  the 

*  See  pp.  106-110  seq.  t  See  pp.  163-169  seq. 

J  See  pp.  115-119;  166  seq. 


Introductory  Summary  xix 

group  of  industries  involved,  some  millions  of 
individuals) — an  economic  entity  so  far  as  one  can 
exist  which  does  not  include  all  organized  society. 
The  special  interests  of  such  a  community  may 
become  hostile  to  those  of  another  community, 
but  it  will  almost  certainly  not  be  a  "national" 
one,  but  one  of  a  like  natiire,  say  a  shipping  ring 
or  groups  of  international  bankers  or  Stock  Ex- 
change speculators.  The  frontiers  of  such  com- 
munities do  not  coincide  with  the  areas  in  which 
operate  the  functions  of  the  State.  How  coiild  a 
State,  say  Britain,  act  on  behalf  of  an  economic 
entity  such  as  that  just  indicated?  By  pressure 
against  America  or  Germany?  But  the  com- 
munity against  which  the  British  manufacturer 
in  this  case  wants  pressure  exercised  is  not 
"America"  or  "Germany" — both  Americans  and 
Germans  are  his  partners  in  the  matter.  He 
wants  it  exercised  against  the  shipping  ring  or  the 
speculators  or  the  bankers  who  in  part  are  British. 
If  Britain  injures  America  and  Germany  as  a 
whole,  she  injures  necessarily  the  economic  entity 
which  it  was  her  object  to  protect.* 

This  establishes  two  things,  therefore:  the  fact 
that  the  political  and  economic  units  do  not  coin- 
cide, and  the  fact  which  follows  as  a  consequence: 
that  action  by  political  authorities  designed  to 
control  economic  activities  which  take  no  account 
of  the  limits  of  political  jurisdiction  is  necessarily 
irrelevant  and  ineffective.     The  assumption  that 

*See  pp.  22-24  and  100-105  seq. 


XX  Introductory  Summary 

States  are  economically  rival,  and  that  economic 
advantage  accrues  to  the  possession  of  political 
power  based  on  military  force,  postulates  com- 
mimities  capable  of  political  and  geographical 
limitation  that  are  self-contained,  and  postulates 
also  the  effective  control  of  the  social  and  economic 
activities  of  similar  other  communities  by  the 
military  force  of  our  own.  The  great  nations  of 
modem  Europe  have  passed  out  of  that  stage  of 
development  in  which  such  a  conception  bears 
even  a  distant  relation  to  the  facts.  This  condi- 
tion carries  with  it  the  intangibility  of  wealth  so 
far  as  foreign  State  action  is  concerned,  because 
any  State  destroying  wealth  in  another  must 
destroy  wealth  in  its  own,  since  the  unit  intersects 
the  two  areas.* 

On  the  economic  side  this  development  is  rel- 
atively modem — its  vital  form  belongs  to  our 
generation.!  The  prime  factor  therein  has,  of 
course,  been  the  improvement  of  communication 
and  the  cheapening  of  transport,  setting  up  a  divi- 
sion of  labour,  with  its  consequent  interdependence 
and  solidarity  of  interest,  between  groups  situated 
in  different  nations  thus  rendering  hostility  based 
on  the  lines  of  political  geography  irrelevant  to 
real  colhsion  of  interest  and  moral  conflict.  It  is  by 
the  fact  of  having  set  up  this  process,  and  not  by 
the  fact  of  having  brought  people  of  different 
nations  into  touch,  that  improved  communication 
is   transforming   the    character   of   international 

*  See  pp.  22-24  and  100-105  seq.    f  See  pp.  108-130  seq. 


Introductory  Summary  xxi 

relations.  People  do  not  necessarily  become  less 
hostile  by  virtue  of  "  knowing  one  another  better, " 
and  seeing  much  of  one  another,  or  we  should  have 
had  no  wars  of  religion,  or  the  bitter  racial,  reli- 
gious, political,  economic,  and  social  conflicts  that 
exist  in  communities  the  members  of  which  see 
each  other  every  day.  The  negro  conflict  in 
America,  anti-Semitism  in  Russia,  the  racial 
conflicts  of  South-Eastem  Europe,  the  perpetual 
revolutions  of  Spanish  America,  are  but  a  few  of 
numberless  cases  illustrating  the  point. 

What  concerns  us  here  is  that,  even  in  those 
conflicts  in  which  physical  force  might  conceivably 
play  some  r61e,  it  is  irrelevant  when  exercised  by 
States,  because  the  State  lines  do  not  follow  the 
lines  of  the  respective  conflicts,  and  because  moral 
possessions  cannot  be  protected  by  force;  these 
only  become  secure  by  virtue  of  a  general  agree- 
ment not  to  resort  to  force,  and  a  general  recogni- 
tion of  the  truth  of  this  must  precede  any  hope  of 
securing  the  agreement — which  in  the  most  vital 
cases  is  not  a  formal  agreement  at  all,  but  an 
implied  one. 

That  intersection  of  the  political  by  the  economic 
botmdaries  just  described  has  a  close  moral  and  in- 
tellectual parallel.  The  nation  which  should  use 
its  military  power  to  arrest  or  destroy  the  intellec- 
tual or  moral  conception  of  some  other  nation — a 
reHgious,  political,  or  social  belief — ^would  certainly 
be  entering  into  war  against  an  identical  belief 
held  by  groups  within  its  own  commimity.    And, 


xxii  Introductory  Summary 

again,  just  as  the  economic  and  commercial  activi- 
ties of  the  world  are  not  carried  on  by  Governments 
acting  as  corporations,  but  by  the  individuals 
within  different  States  setting  up  activities  that 
operate  across  the  political  divisions,  in  the  same 
way  it  is  not  the  Governments  that  think  and 
modify  opinion,  but  the  individuals  acting  in 
conscious  or  unconscious  co-operation  with  in- 
dividuals in  foreign  and  "rival"  States.  The 
great  movements  of  all  time,  even  long  before 
improved  communications  had  made  of  Europe  a 
single  intellectual  organism,  have  been  the  joint 
work  of  men  of  many  nations.  The  religious 
Reformation,  the  French  Revolution  and  all  that 
arose  therefrom,  are  modem  cases  which  have  had 
their  parallel  in  all  written  history.  And  just  as 
the  physical  life  of  a  large  proportion  of  the  British 
population  is  only  rendered  possible  because  in 
their  economic  activities  they  act  as  dependent 
parts  of  a  larger  whole,  so  it  is  only  by  virtue  of 
forming  a  part  of  a  larger  moral  and  intellectual 
whole  that  it  has  acquired  those  attributes  which 
we  deem  characteristic  of  the  British — such  as 
representative  political  institutions — all  based 
upon  a  general  knowledge  made  possible  by  such 
foreign  importations,  its  alphabet,  its  mathematics, 
printing,  its  Christian  religion,  both  of  the  older 
and  newer  form,  its  newer  political  and  social 
movements — all  the  result  of  intellectual  co-opera- 
tion with  a  larger  than  a  purely  national  world.* 
*  See  pp.  30-35;  57-60  seq. 


Introductory  Summary  xxiii 

The  arbitrary  assertion  that,  even  cut  off  from 
European  and  Eastern  society,  "Britain"  would 
have  developed  this  knowledge  and  these  arts  and 
moralities  is,  of  course,  capable  neither  of  proof  nor 
disproof.  All  we  can  say  is,  that  that  is  not  the 
way  she  has  acquired  them. 

How  irrelevant  are  conflicts  based  on  State  boim- 
daries  to  the  deeper  divisions  is  illustrated  by  the 
relation  of  the  Western  and  Christian,  to  the 
Eastern  and  non- Christian  world.  This  is  sup- 
posed to  be  one  of  the  most  vital  of  the  issues,  from 
which  no  egress  can  be  found  save  by  the  military 
action  of  States.  Yet,  within  the  lifetime  of  men 
still  living,  we  have  seen  the  armies  of  two  Western 
and  Christian  Powers  allied  with  an  Eastern  and 
Mohammedan  against  a  third  Christian  Power; 
we  have  seen  the  policy  of  the  British  Empire 
committed  for  nearly  two  generations  to  an  at- 
tempt to  strengthen  a  retrograde  Asiatic  Power 
against  the  Christian  and  more  progressive  forces 
that  surrounded  her.  The  habit  of  thinking  in 
States  leads  EngUshmen  to  the  conclusion  that 
they  have  no  particular  interest  in  the  defence  of 
Pennsylvania  or  Massachusetts,  or  any  other 
American  State,  and  all  that  their  civilization 
represents  in  the  way  of  future  outlets  for  our 
children  and  as  a  bulwark  of  Western  culture,  but 
that  it  is  worth  while  giving  immensely  of  blood 
and  treasure  for  the  defence  of  Burma  or  the 
Deccan;  the  same  habit  leads  Germans  to  the 
conclusion  (in  the  British  view)  that  it  is  to  their 


xxiv  Introductory  Summary 

best  interest  to  diminish  British  influence  and 
increase  Turkish  and  Japanese ;  it  leads  Frenchmen 
to  the  conclusion  that  Western  culture  can  best 
be  promoted  by  the  support  of  Russia  as  against 
Germany.  And  so  on  and  so  on.  It  is  in  this 
way  that  the  maintenance  of  the  military  power  of 
States  and  the  older  conception  of  human  divisions 
works  for  the  defence  of  the  higher  culture  against 
the  lower! 

But  in  order  more  fully  to  realize  the  true 
relation  of  force  to  the  protection  of  the  moral 
possessions  of  separate  communities,  it  is  neces- 
sary to  realize  the  true  nature  of  that  relation 
within  the  community.  An  immense  confusion 
exists  here  because  the  defective  terminology  of 
the  science  of  society  leads  us  to  use  the  same  word 
for  two  opposed  processes.  The  basis  of  social 
security  is  not  physical  coercion,  it  is  the  cancella- 
tion of  coercion  by  an  equivalent  coimterbalancing 
force. 

The  one  unquestionably  useful  work  of  political 
organization  of  government  has  been  the  elimina- 
tion of  coercion  as  between  men — the  work  of 
assuring  in  some  degree  at  least  that  one  citizen 
does  not  use  physical  coercion  against  another. 
Its  function  is  to  prevent  the  use  of  force;  it  does 
that  by  cancelling  it.  If  the  robber  attempts  the 
use  of  force,  the  force  of  the  government  (through 
the  policeman,  for  instance)  is  thrown  against  him 
and  his  force  is  cancelled.  In  the  case  of  an  honest 
difference  between  two  citizens,  it  is  not  the  pre- 


Introductory  Summary  xxv 

ponderance  of  physical  weight  which  determines 
the  issue  between  them,  but  the  combined  intelli- 
gence of  the  community,  as  we  have  it  expressed 
in  law  (I  am  giving  the  theory  of  the  thing,  of 
course),  deciding  which  settlement  will  best  make 
for  the  efficient  co-operation  of  the  community. 

Not  even  the  most  stupid  pretend  that  the 
method  in  all  its  details,  or  in  all  cases,  works  to 
perfection.  But  it  is  an  improvement  on  the  older 
method  of  each  man  using  his  force  against  his 
fellows,  a  method  which  mankind  had  to  abandon 
as  soon  as,  and  to  the  degree  to  which,  it  had 
need  of  social  co-operation  at  all.  Improvement 
will  come,  not  by  reversion  to  the  old  method,  but 
by  the  development  of  the  new.  Where  govern- 
ment confines  its  exercise  of  physical  force  to  the 
cancellation  of  the  coercion  of  one  citizen  by 
another,  leaving  intelligence  free  to  fix  the  several 
adjustments  either  through  extra-juridical  means 
or  through  the  improvement  of  law,  there  is 
possibility  of  improving  such  adjustments.  Only 
when  government  itself  becomes  a  user  of  force, 
not  for  the  purpose  of  the  cancellation  of  coercion, 
but  in  the  positive  sense,  basing  the  imposition  of 
its  will,  not  upon  agreement,  but  upon  the  mere 
possession  of  power  to  impose  it,  and  abandoning 
or  suppressing  the  effort  through  discussion  to 
establish  the  common  will — then  only  does  possi- 
bility of  improvement  stop. 

Government  in  Western  nations  is  now  univer- 
sally based,  ostensibly  at  least,  upon  the  policy 


xxvi  Introductory  Summary 

just  indicated;  it  is  assumed  to  represent,  not  the 
mere  accidental  possession  of  force,  but  the  com- 
mon will  and  interest.  Where  political  privilege 
exists — not  by  virtue  of  the  utihty  of  the  fimction 
which  those  who  enjoy  that  privilege  perform, 
but  merely  by  virtue  of  the  fact  that  they  hold 
means  of  coercion  as  against  those  upon  whom  it  is 
imposed — this  arrangement  is  deemed  to  fall  short 
of  Western  ideals.  The  internal  polity  of  the 
higher  type  of  Western  nation  is  based  upon  the 
acceptance  of  a  convention  by  which  the  use  of 
force  shall  be  withheld.  The  British  Government 
does  not  hold  its  office  by  virtue  of  the  physical 
force  which  it  exercises,  because  in  that  case  it 
wotdd  not  withdraw  upon  an  adverse  vote  of  the 
people,  but  use  the  army  (which  it  commands)  to 
retain  its  power  and  would  only  be  dislodged  when 
another  army — that  of  a  revolution — was  brought 
against  it.  Where  force  is  the  ultimate  sanction, 
as  it  is  in  certain  miUtary  civilizations  like  some  in 
South  America,  the  conflict  is  one  of  military 
power.  But  in  the  civilist  polity  of  more  orderly 
States  the  sanction  is  the  general  will  of  the  com- 
munity expressed  through  Parliamentary  institu- 
tions or  otherwise.  Nor  is  it  the  fact  that  in  order 
to  secure  collective  action  there  must  be  the  im- 
pHed  threat  of  coercion;  collective  action  can 
equally  be  secured  by  the  agreement  of  those  who 
do  not  approve  a  given  line  of  action  to  acquiesce 
on  condition  that  they  shall  be  free  to  persuade,  if 
they  can,  other  parties  to  the  compact  to  modify 


Introductory  Summary        xxvii 

it.  Conservatives  acquiesce  in  Liberal  legislation 
on  the  understanding  that  they  shall  alter  it  if 
they  can  win  the  country  over  to  their  view.  The 
whole  arrangement  is  based  on  the  implied  agree- 
ment that  neither  party  should  take  advantage  of 
its  possession  of  the  instruments  of  coercion  to  use 
them  against  the  other.  When  this  agreement  is 
not  observed,  there  is  a  movement  away  from  the 
British  towards  the  Venezuelan  or  Turkish  type  of 
society.  The  basis  of  British  society  is  the  obser- 
vation of  the  convention  not  to  use  force. 

This  polity,  which  is  the  basis  of  organized 
society  as  between  rival  commimities  within 
modem  States,  is  not  yet  recognized  as  operative 
between  the  political  bodies  which  we  call  nations 
save  with  reference  to  one  group — the  nations 
of  the  British  Empire.  We  have  therein  a  com- 
munity of  five  independent  States  between  whom 
arise  at  times  very  serious  differences  (as  between 
Natal  and  India,  and  Britain  and  Australia),  and 
in  their  case  we  have  formal  recognition  of  the 
convention  that  coercion  shall  not  be  used  by  one 
as  against  the  other,  a  convention  easier  to  main- 
tain than  in  the  case  of  parties  in  the  same  state, 
because  there  is  no  real  need  of  common  political 
action  between  them. 

It  was  very  generally  recognized  in  Britain  re- 
cently that  the  difficulties  which  arose  as  between 
India  and  Natal  were  very  grave  indeed.  Had 
Great  Britain  in  that  case  been  dealing  with  a 
foreign  Power,  the  question  of  a  casus  belli  would 


xxviii        Introductory  Summary 

certainly  have  arisen  (Lord  Hardinge's  speech 
made  that  plain) .  But  British  public  men  and  the 
British  Press  aUke  agreed  that,  however  wrong 
the  attitude  of  Natal  might  be,  the  fact  that  she 
was  a  self-governing  colony  precluded  the  possi- 
bility of  Britain's  using  compulsion  in  the  matter. 
But  while  this  principle  has  only  received  formal 
recognition  in  the  case  of  the  States  of  the  British 
Empire,  in  practice  it  is  much  more  widely  opera- 
tive. Britons,  like  the  people  of  many  of  the 
older  nations,  have  sunk  thousands  of  millions  in 
foreign  investments,  the  real  security  of  which  is 
not  any  physical  force  which  their  Government 
could  possibly  exercise,  but  the  free  recognition  of 
foreigners  that  it  is  to  their  advantage  to  adhere 
to  financial  obligations.  Britons  do  not  even 
pretend  that  the  security  of  their  investments  in 
a  country  like  America,  or  even  Argentina,  is 
dependent  upon  the  coercion  which  the  British 
Government  is  able  to  exercise  over  those  coun- 
tries.* And  not  merely  do  they  trust  their  money, 
but  their  lives,  to  the  protection  of  a  like  order 
of  moral  force.  The  physical  force  of  Great 
Britain  could  not   certainly  ever  be  effectively 

*  I  happened  to  have  learned  a  year  or  two  since  that  a  British 
politician,  whose  public  utterances  at  the  time  of  the  German 
invasion  scare  included  one  to  the  effect  that  "the  only  secure 
protection  against  the  cupidity  of  Germanic  hordes  was  an  over- 
whelming British  fleet,"  was  himself  the  owner  of  German  indus- 
trial debentures,  had  sent  a  son  to  be  educated  in  Germany,  and 
was  accustomed  to  go  to  a  German  watering-place,  where  he 
placed  himself  in  the  hands  of  German  doctors! 


Introductory  Summary  xxix 

operative  in  Switzerland  or  Austria,  yet  every 
summer  tens  of  thousands  of  Britons  trust  their 
lives  and  those  of  their  womenkind  and  children 
to  no  better  security  than  the  expectation  that  a 
foreign  community  over  whom  we  have  no  possi- 
bility of  exercising  force  will  observe  a  convention 
which  has  no  sanction  other  than  the  recognition 
that  it  is  to  their  advantage  to  observe  it.  And 
we  thus  have  the  spectacle  of  milHons  of  Britons 
absolutely  convinced  that  the  sanctity  of  their 
homes  and  the  safety  of  their  property  are  secure 
from  the  ravages  of  the  foreigner  only  because  they 
possess  a  naval  and  military  force  that  overawes 
him,  yet  serenely  leaving  the  protection  of  that 
military  force,  and  placing  life  and  property  alike 
within  the  absolute  power  of  that  very  foreigner 
against  whose  predatory  tendencies  we  spend 
millions  in  protecting  ourselves. 

No  use  of  military  power,  however  complete  and 
overwhelming,  would  pretend  to  afford  a  protection 
anything  like  as  complete  as  that  afforded  by  these 
moral  forces.  Sixty  years  ago  Britain  had  as  against 
Greece  a  preponderance  of  power  that  made  her 
the  absolute  dictator  of  the  latter' s  policy  yet  all  the 
British  battleships  and  all  the  threats  of  "conse- 
quences" could  not  prevent  British  travellers  being 
murdered  by  Greek  brigands,  though  in  Switzerland 
only  moral  forces — the  recognition  by  an  astute 
people  of  the  advantage  of  treating  foreigners 
well — had  already  made  the  lives  and  property 
of  Britons  as  safe  in  that  country  as  in  their  own, 


XXX  Introductory  Summary 

In  the  same  way,  no  scheme  of  arming  Protes- 
tants as  against  Catholics,  or  Catholics  as  against 
Protestants  (the  method  which  gave  us  the  wars 
of  religion  and  massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew),  or 
of  Conservatives  as  against  Liberals  (which  gives 
us  San  Domingo  and  Venezuela),  could  assure  that 
general  security  of  spiritual  and  intellectual  posses- 
sions which  we  now  in  large  measure  enjoy. 

We  have  seen  how  strong  and  effective  are  those 
social  forces  just  sketched  in  assuring  men  security, 
and  how  feeble,  irrelevant,  and  finally  self -stultify- 
ing, in  achieving  the  same  ends  is  military  force. 
We  have  seen  also  that  Europeans  in  their  indi- 
vidual conduct  recognize  this  and  give  their 
practical  allegiance  to  the  first  method,  and  that 
by  so  doing  they  help  to  develop  it,  and  yet  in 
their  political  conduct,  in  the  policies  of  their 
Governments,  still  adhere  to  the  second  method 
and  disparage  the  first;  that  all  their  political 
effort,  energy,  and  emotion  are  based  upon  theories 
and  principles  which  all  their  daily  and  private 
conduct  flouts. 

How  comes  this  contradiction? 

It  is,  in  part  at  least,  because  men  give  to  the 
management  of  their  own  affairs,  in  the  develop- 
ment of  their  business,  in  the  investment  of  their 
money,  the  education  of  their  children,  a  care  and 
thoroughness  of  attention  which  they  do  not  give 
(and  cannot  be  expected  to  give)  to  poHtics,  which 
are  so  largely  other  people's  affairs.  The  first  is 
the  outcome  of  specialized  knowledge,  the  train- 


Introductory  Summary         xxxi 

ing  of  a  lifetime;  the  second  is  not.*  And  judg- 
ments based  on  rapid  superficial  views  will  be 
influenced  mainly  by  the  visible  and  tangible,  to 
the  disregard  of  the  invisible  and  intangible  but 
none  the  less  real.  Armies  and  navies  are  visible 
and  tangible  things;  "social  forces"  are  not;  the 
sovereignty  of  a  State  embodied  in  a  King  or 
Cabinet  is  visible;  the  World  State,  though  real, 
is  intangible ;  a  sanction  expressed  in  a  printed  law 
is  visible ;  the  sanction  of  mutual  dependence,  com- 
pelling far  more  powerfully  it  may  be  than  could 
law  the  observance  of  a  compact,  is  invisible;  a 
"possession"  in  the  shape  of  a  colony  can  be  seen 
on  the  map,  though  the  only  proprietary  rights  we 
have  therein  may  be  much  less  numerous  than  our 
proprietary  rights  in  countries  that  are  marked  on 
maps  as  "rivals." 

And  the  weight  of  an  unexamined  and  obsolete 
political  terminology  is,  though  more  subtle, 
probably  just  as  powerful.  The  Professor  of  a 
great  University,  a  teacher  of  history,  and  a 
student  of  constitutional  law,  once  thought  to 
score  a  point  by  asking:  "Were  those  who  believed 
that  possession  of  extended  territory  did  not  en- 
rich a  people  prepared  to  see  Great  Britain  give 
away  Canada?"     He  was  asked  how  he  supposed 

*  This  fact  was  remarked  once  by  the  late  Lord  Salisbury  in 
reply  to  a  delegation  of  City  nien.  He  said,  "You  act  as  poli- 
ticians as  you  would  never  act  as  business  men,"  and  hinted 
pretty  plainly  that  their  political  conduct  was  guided  by  a 
superficiality  of  view  that  they  would  never  allow  to  control  their 
commercial  conduct. 


xxxii         Introductory  Summary 

Great  Britain  could  "give  away"  the  inhabitants 
of  Canada,  and  what  proprietary  right  she  pos- 
sessed in  those  eight  million  human  beings? 

Both  the  phrases  and  the  pictures  which  they 
imply  are,  of  course,  an  historical  survival  from  a 
time  when  a  colonial  "plantation "  was  really  some- 
body's possession  (the  monopoly  of  some  company 
of  trading  adventurers  or  a  Court  favourite);  or 
from  a  still  earlier  time  when  political  "owner- 
ship" was  a  quite  real  thing  from  the  point  of  view 
of  some  reigning  family  to  whom  a  country  was  an 
estate;  or  from  the  period  in  Europe  when  the 
trade  of  "government"  was  as  much  the  pro- 
fessional interest  of  an  oligarchic  group  as  banking 
or  cotton-spinning  are  definite  industrial  interests 
of  our  day. 

We  have  here,  then,  two  factors;  the  general 
currency  of  words  and  pictures  that  were  created 
to  indicate  conditions  that  have  passed  away,  and 
the  interpretation  of  these  words  and  pictures  by 
people  compelled  by  the  inevitable  circumstances 
of  their  lives  to  form  their  political  concep- 
tions hurriedly  and  superficially — from  the  news- 
paper headline,  the  vague  chatter  of  smoking-room 
leisure.  Now  to  these  add  another  factor — one 
which  the  pro-military  critic  seems  to  imagine  the 
civilist  overlooks,  though  it  is  in  reality  the  basis 
of  the  whole  case,  the  most  important  fact  in  all 
this  discussion — namely,  that  the  element  in  man 
which  makes  him  capable,  however  feebly,  of 
choice  in  the  matter  of  conduct,  the  one  fact  dis- 


Introductory  Summary        xxxiii 

tinguishing  him  from  that  vast  multitude  of  living 
things  which  act  unreflectingly,  instinctively  (in 
the  proper  and  scientific  sense  of  the  word),  as  the 
mere  physical  reaction  to  external  prompting,  is 
something  not  deeply  rooted,  since  it  is  the  latest 
addition  of  all  to  our  nature.  The  really  deeply- 
rooted  motives  of  conduct,  those  having  by  far 
the  greatest  biological  momentum,  are  naturally 
the  "motives"  of  the  plant  and  the  animal,  the 
kind  that  marks  in  the  main  the  acts  of  all  living 
things  save  man,  the  imreflecting  motives,  those 
containing  no  element  of  ratiocination  and  free 
volition,  that  almost  mechanical  reaction  to  exter- 
nal forces  which  draw  the  leaves  towards  the  sun 
rays  and  makes  the  tiger  tear  its  living  food  limb 
from  limb. 

To  make  plain  what  that  really  means  in  human 
conduct,  we  must  recall  the  character  of  that 
process  by  which  man  turns  the  forces  of  Nature  to 
his  service  instead  of  allowing  them  to  overwhelm 
him.  We  saw  that  its  essence  was  a  union  of 
individual  forces  against  the  common  enemy,  the 
forces  of  Nature.  Where  men  in  isolated  action 
woiild  have  been  powerless,  and  would  have  been 
destroyed,  union,  association,  co-operation,  en- 
abled them  to  survive.  Survival  was  contingent 
upon  the  cessation  of  struggle  between  them,  and 
the  substitution  therefor  of  common  action.  Now, 
the  process  both  in  the  beginning  and  in  the  sub- 
sequent development  of  this  device  of  co-operation 
is  important.     It  was  bom  of  a  failure  of  force. 


xxxiv        Introductory  Summary 

If  the  isolated  force  had  sufficed,  the  union  of 
force  would  not  have  been  resorted  to.  But  such 
union  is  not  a  mere  mechanical  multiplication  of 
blind  energies:  it  is  a  combination  involving  will, 
intelligence.  If  mere  multiplication  of  physical 
energy  had  determined  the  result  of  man's  struggles 
he  would  have  been  destroyed  or  be  the  helpless 
slave  of  the  animals  of  which  he  makes  his  food.* 
He  has  overcome  them  as  he  has  overcome  the 
flood  and  the  storm — by  quite  another  order  of 
action.  Intelligence  only  emerges  where  physical 
force  is  ineffective. 

I  have  already  in  this  summary  touched  upon, 
and  in  the  pages  that  follow  more  fully  described  f 
the  almost  mechanical  process  by  which,  as  the 
complexity  of  co-operation  grows,  the  element  of 
physical  compulsion  declines  in  effectiveness,  and 
is  replaced  by  agreement  based  on  mutual  recogni- 
tion of  advantage.  There  is  through  every  step 
of  the  development  the  same  phenomenon :  intelli- 
gence and  agreement  only  emerge  as  force  becomes 
ineffective.  In  human  relations  it  generally  be- 
comes ineffective  through  resistance.  The  early 
(and  purely  illustrative)  slave  owner  who  spent  his 
days  seeing  that  his  slave  did  not  run  away,  and 
compelling  him  to  work,  realized  the  economic 
defect  of  the  arrangement;  most  of  the  effort, 

*  It  is  a  curious  fact,  by  the  way,  that  the  physically  great 
monsters — the  dinosaurus,  the  plesiosaurus,  the  labyrinthedon, 
the  mastodon — have  disappeared  in  favour  of  much  smaller 
animals. 

fSee  pp.  18-20;  106-110  seq. 


Introductory  Summary        xxxv 

physical  and  intellectual,  of  the  slave  was  devoted 
to  trying  to  escape;  that  of  the  owner,  trying  to 
prevent  him.  The  force  of  the  one,  intellectual  or 
physical,  cancelled  the  force  of  the  other,  and  the 
energies  of  both  were  lost  so  far  as  productive 
value  was  concerned,  and  the  needed  task,  the 
building  of  the  shelter  or  the  catching  of  the  fish, 
was  not  done  or  badly  done,  and  both  went  short 
as  to  food  and  shelter.  But  from  the  moment  that 
they  struck  a  bargain  as  to  the  division  of  labour 
and  of  spoils,  and  adhered  to  it,  the  full  energies  of 
both  were  Hberated  for  direct  production,  and  the 
economic  effectiveness  of  the  arrangement  was 
not  merely  doubled,  but  probably  multiplied  many 
times.  But  this  substitution  of  free  agreement  for 
coercion,  with  all  that  it  implied  of  contract,  of 
"what  is  fair,"  and  all  that  followed  of  mutual 
reliance  in  the  fiilfilment  of  the  agreement,  was 
based  upon  mutual  recognition  of  advantage.  Now, 
that  recognition,  without  which  the  arrange- 
ment could  not  exist  at  all,  required,  relatively, 
a  considerable  mental  effort,  due  in  the  first  instance 
to  the  failure  of  force.  If  the  slave  owner  had  had 
more  effective  means  of  physical  coercion,  and  had 
been  able  to  subdue  his  slave,  he  would  not  have 
bothered  about  agreement,  and  this  embryo  of 
human  society  and  justice  would  not  have  been 
brought  into  being.  And  in  history  its  develop- 
ment has  never  been  constant,  but  marked  by  the 
same  rise  and  fall  of  the  two  orders  of  motive:  as 
soon  as  one  party  or  the  other  obtained  such  pre- 


xxxvi         Introductory  Summary 

ponderance  of  strength  as  promised  to  be  effective, 
he  showed  a  tendency  to  drop  free  agreement  and 
use  force;  this,  of  course,  immediately  provoked 
the  resistance  of  the  other,  with  a  lesser  or  greater 
reversion  to  the  earlier  profitless  condition. 

This  perpetual  tendency  to  abandon  the  social 
arrangement  and  resort  to  physical  coercion  is,  of 
coiirse,  easily  explainable  by  the  biological  fact 
just  touched  on.  To  realize  at  each  turn  and  per- 
mutation of  the  division  of  labour  that  the  social 
arrangement  was,  after  all,  the  best,  demanded  on 
the  part  of  the  two  characters  in  our  sketch,  not 
merely  control  of  instinctive  actions,  but  a  rela- 
tively large  ratiocinative  effort  for  which  the 
biological  history  of  early  man  had  not  fitted  him. 
The  physical  act  of  compulsion  only  required  a 
stone  axe  and  a  quickness  of  purely  physical  move- 
ment for  which  his  biological  history  had  afforded 
infinitely  long  training.  The  more  mentally- 
motived  action,  that  of  social  conduct,  demanding 
reflection  as  to  its  effect  on  others,  and  the  effect 
of  that  reaction  upon  oiir  own  position  and  a 
conscious  control  of  physical  acts,  is  of  modem 
growth;  it  is  but  skin-deep;  its  biological  mo- 
mentimi  is  feeble.  Yet  on  that  feeble  structure 
has  been  built  all  civilisation. 

When  we  remember  this — ^how  frail  are  the 
ultimate  foimdations  of  our  fortress,  how  much 
those  spiritual  elements  which  alone  can  give  us 
human  society  are  outnumbered  by  the  prehuman 
elements — is  it   surprising  that  those  pre-social 


Introductory  Summary       xxxvii 

promptings  of  which  civilization  represents  the 
conquest  occasionally  overwhelm  man,  break  up 
the  solidarity  of  his  army,  and  push  him  back  a 
stage  or  two  nearer  to  the  brute  condition  from 
which  he  came;  that  even  at  this  moment  he  is 
groping  blindly  as  to  the  method  of  distributing 
in  the  order  of  his  most  vital  needs  the  wealth  he 
is  able  to  wring  from  the  earth;  that  some  of  his 
most  fundamental  social  and  political  conceptions 
— those,  among  others,  with  which  we  are  now 
dealing — ^have  little  relation  to  real  facts;  that  his 
animosities  and  hatreds  are  as  purposeless  and 
meaningless  as  his  enthusiasms  and  his  sacrifices; 
that  emotion  and  effort  which  quantitatively 
would  suffice  amply  for  the  greater  tasks  before 
him,  for  the  firmer  establishment  of  justice  and 
well-being,  for  the  cleaning  up  of  all  the  festering 
areas  of  moral  savagery  that  remain,  are  as  a 
simple  matter  of  fact  turned  to  those  purposes 
hardly  at  all,  but  to  objects  which,  to  the  degree 
to  which  they  succeed,  merely  stultify  each  other? 
Now,  this  fact,  the  fact  that  civilization  is  but 
skin-deep  and  that  man  is  so  largely  the  unreflec- 
ing  brute,  is  not  denied  by  pro-military  critics  of 
civilist  philosophy.  On  the  contrary,  they  appeal 
to  it  as  the  first  and  last  justification  of  their  policy. 
"All  your  talk  will  never  get  over  human  nature; 
men  are  not  guided  by  logic;  passion  is  boimd  to 
get  the  upper  hand,"  and  such  phrases,  are  a  sort 
of  Greek  chorus  supplied  by  the  military  party  to 
the  whole  of  this  discussion. 


xxxviii      Introductory  Summary 

Nor  do  the  militarist  advocates  deny  that  these 
unreflecting  elements  are  anti-social;  again,  it  is 
part  of  their  case  that,  unless  they  are  held  in 
check  by  the  "iron  hand,"  they  will  submerge 
society  in  a  welter  of  savagery.  Nor  do  they  deny 
— ^it  is  hardly  possible  to  do  so — ^that  the  most 
important  securities  which  we  enjoy,  the  possi- 
bility of  living  in  mutual  respect  of  right  because 
we  have  achieved  some  understanding  of  right; 
all  that  distinguishes  modem  Europe  from  the 
Europe  of  (among  other  things)  religious  wars 
and  St.  Bartholomew  massacres,  and  distin- 
guishes British  political  methods  from  those  of 
Turkey  or  Venezuela,  are  due  to  the  develop- 
ment of  moral  forces  (since  physical  force  is 
most  resorted  to  in  the  less  desirable  age  and 
area),  and  particularly  to  the  general  recogni- 
tion that  you  cannot  solve  religious  and  political 
problems  by  submitting  them  to  the  irrelevant 
hazard  of  physical  force. 

We  have  got  thus  far,  then :  both  parties  to  the 
discussion  are  agreed  as  to  the  fundamental  fact 
that  civilization  is  based  upon  moral  and  intel- 
lectual elements  in  constant  danger  of  being 
overwhelmed  by  more  deeply-rooted  anti-social 
elements.  The  plain  facts  of  history  past  and 
present  are  there  to  show  that  where  those  moral 
elements  are  absent  the  mere  fact  of  the  possession 
of  arms  only  adds  to  the  destructiveness  of  the 
resulting  welter. 

The  civilist  party  says: 


Introductory  Summary        xxxix 

"As  the  first  and  last  factors  of  civilization  are  the 
moral  and  intellectual  capacities  of  its  units,  our  first 
efforts  must  centre  upon  their  protection  and  develop- 
ment. They  will,  obviously,  have  best  chance  of  sur- 
vival if  we  can  eliniinate  as  far  as  possible  the  chances 
of  physical  collision,  just  as  they  have  been  eliminated 
in  the  religious  field  and  in  the  field  of  internal  politics 
among  Western  nations,  and  if  we  can  eliminate  the 
destructiveness  of  each  of  the  opposing  forces  in  case 
we  shotild  yield  to  our  imseeing  passions.' ' 

The  militarist  party  says: 

"'Men  are  savage,  blood-thirsty  creatures  who,  when 
their  blood  is  up,  will  fight  for  nothing,  for  a  word,  for 
a  sign .'  *  We  should  therefore  disparage  the  development 
of  all  counteracting  intellectual  and  moral  forces,  and 
take  every  precaution  to  see  that  their  capacity  for  dam- 
age when  in  that  condition  of  blind  excitement  is  .  .  . 
as  great  as  possible.  All  else  is  chimera  and  useless 
theorizing." 

I  have  certainly  no  intention  of  doing  any  in- 
justice to  miHtarist  advocacy  in  this  last  con- 
clusion, and  none  is  done,  for  the  whole  attitude 
of  such  advocacy  is  Hterally  and  exactly  what  I 
have  indicated.  All  attempts  to  secure  our  safety 
by  other  than  military  means  are  not  merely  re- 
garded with  indifference:  they  are  more  generally 
treated  either  with  a  truly  ferocious  contempt  or 
with  definite  condemnation. 

This  apparently  on   two  grounds:  first,   that 

*  Spectator, 


xl  Introductory  Summary 

nothing  that  we  can  do  will  affect  the  conduct  of 
other  nations;  secondly,  that,  in  the  development 
of  those  moral  forces  which  do  tmdoubtedly  give 
us  security,  government  action — which  political 
effort  has  in  view — can  play  no  part. 

Both  assumptions  are,  of  course,  groimdless. 
The  first  implies  not  only  that  our  own  conduct  and 
our  own  ideas  need  no  examination,  but  that  ideas 
current  in  one  coimtry  have  no  reaction  on  those 
of  another,  and  that  the  political  action  of  one 
State  does  not  affect  that  of  others.  The  second 
means,  in  reality,  that  nothing  can  be  done  because 
nothing  has  been  done.  In  these  pages*  and  else- 
where f  I  have  shown  how  immensely  political 
action  can  be  made  to  develop  those  social  and 
moral  forces  here  dealt  with,  and  how  the  individ- 
ual action  of  one  State  can  be  made  to  react  upon 
that  of  others.  But  such  a  fact  is  not  reaUzed 
because  the  feebly-developed  social  instinct  which 
military  philosophy  implies  not  merely  disregards 
the  immense  weight  of  the  social  forces  at  work, 
but  inhibits  any  effective  conception  of  the  fact  that 
the  value  of  a  policy  must  be  judged  by  its  effect 
when  adopted  by  all  parties.  "The  way  to  be  sure 
of  peace  is  to  be  so  much  stronger  than  your  enemy 
that  he  will  not  dare  to  attack  you,  "J  is  the  type 

*  See  pp.  185-202. 

t  See  "The  Great  Illusion,"  Part  III.  (Heinemann,  London) 
and  "War  and  the  Workers,"  Chapter  V.  (National  Labour  Press, 
Manchester) . 

X  Mr.  Winston  Churchill. 


Introductory  Summary  xli 

of  accepted  and  much-applauded  "axioms,"  the 
xmf  ortunate  corollary  of  which  is  (since  both  parties 
can  adopt  the  rule)  that  peace  will  only  be  finally 
achieved  when  each  is  stronger  than  the  other. 

So  thought  and  acted  the  man  with  the  stone  axe 
in  our  illustration,  and  in  both  cases  the  psycho- 
logical motive  is  the  same:  the  long-inherited 
impulse  to  isolated  action,  to  the  solution  of  a 
difficulty  by  some  simple  form  of  physical  move- 
ment; the  tendency  to  break  through  the  more 
lately  acquired  habit  of  action  based  on  social  com- 
pact and  on  the  mental  realization  of  its  advantage. 
It  is  the  reaction  against  intellectual  effort  and 
responsible  control  of  instinct,  a  form  of  natural 
protest  very  common  in  children  and  in  adults  not 
brought  under  the  influence  of  social  discipline. 

Incidentally  the  conception  that  the  only  possible 
social  relationship  is  for  one  party  to  be  in  a  posi- 
tion to  impose  its  will  and  for  the  other  to  accept 
it,  because  it  can  do  nothing  else,  is  fatal,  on  the 
one  side  to  human  dignity  and  on  the  other  to  the 
quality  of  human  character,  since,  as  someone  has 
said:  "It  makes  the  top  dog  a  bull  and  the  under 
dog  a  cur." 

The  same  general  characteristics  are  as  recogniz- 
able in  militarist  politics  within  the  nation  as  in 
the  international  field.  It  is  not  by  accident  that 
Prussian  and  Bismarckian  conceptions  in  foreign 
policy  are  invariably  accompanied  by  autocratic 
conceptions  in  internal  affairs.  Both  are  founded 
upon  a  belief  in  force  as  the  ultimate  determinant 


xlii  Introductory  Summary 

in  human  conduct ;  a  disbelief  in  the  things  of  the 
mind  as  factors  of  social  control,  a  disbelief  in 
moral  forces  that  cannot  be  expressed  in  "blood 
and  iron."  The  impatience  shown  by  the  mili- 
tarist the  world  over  at  government  by  discussion, 
his  desire  to  "shut  up  the  talking  shops"  and  to 
govern  autocratically,  are  but  expressions  of  the 
same  temper  and  attitude. 

That  temper  and  attitude  have,  of  course,  pro- 
foundly affected  the  whole  course  of  social  history, 
and  are  affecting  it  to-day.  The  forms  which 
Governments  have  taken  and  the  general  method 
of  social  management  are  in  large  part  the  result  of 
its  influence.  Most  Governments  are  to-day 
framed  far  more  as  instruments  for  the  exercise 
of  physical  force  than  as  instruments  of  social 
management. 

Now,  the  militarist  attitude  would  have  one 
justification  if  it  were  true  that  the  mind  of  man  is 
incapable  of  discerning  how  his  conduct  shall  be 
shaped,  if  man  were,  like  other  animals,  merely 
part  of  the  blind  forces  of  nature ;  if  in  his  acts  there 
could  be  no  element  of  intelligent  volition — then 
the  mechanical  hazard  of  blind  force  would  be 
as  good  a  test  to  which  to  put  social  policy  as  any. 

And  this,  indeed,  is  the  fimdamental  assumption, 
however  little  avowed  or  even  recognized,  of 
militarist  philosophy.  It  is  betrayed  in  the  com- 
mon habit  of  talking  of  war  as  one  talks  of  earth- 
quake or  pestilence,  as  "coming  upon  us" — not  as 
something  that  we  create.    The  following  passage 


Introductory  Summary  xliii 

from  a  much-quoted  military  writer  (General 
Homer  Lea)  reveals  what  is  the  most  significant 
note  of  all  similar  literature: 

"National  entities,  in  their  birth,  activities,  and 
death,  are  controlled  by  the  same  laws  that  govern 
all  life — plant,  animal,  or  national.  Plans  to  thwart 
them,  to  shortcut  them,  to  circumvent,  to  cozen,  to 
deny,  to  scorn  and  violate  them,  is  folly  such  as 
man's  conceit  alone  makes  possible.  Never  has  this 
been  tried — and  man  is  ever  at  it — but  what  the 
end  has  been  gangrenous  and  fatal. 

'  *  In  theory  international  arbitration  denies  the  in- 
exorability of  natural  laws,  and  would  substitute  for 
them  the  veriest  Cagliostroic  formulas,  or  would,  with 
the  vanity  of  Canute,  sit  down  on  the  ocean- side  of 
life  and  command  the  ebb  and  flow  of  its  tides  to  cease. 

"The  idea  of  international  arbitration  as  a  substitute 
for  natural  laws  that  govern  the  existence  of  political 
entities  arises  not  only  from  a  denial  of  their  fiats  and 
an  ignorance  of  their  application,  but  from  a  total 
misconception  of  war,  its  causes  and  its  meaning." 

General  Lea's  thesis  is  emphasised  in  the  intro- 
duction to  his  work,  written  by  another  American 
soldier,  General  John  J.  P.  Storey: 

"A  few  idealists  may  have  visions  that  with  advan- 
cing civilization  war  and  its  dread  horrors  will  cease. 
Civilization  has  not  changed  human  nature.  The 
nature  of  man  makes  war  inevitable.  Armed  strife 
will  not  disappear  from  the  earth  until  human  nature 
changes." 


xliv  Introductory  Summary 

Thus,  the  militarist  does  not  allow  that  man  has 
free  will  in  the  matter  of  his  conduct  at  all;  he 
insists  that  mechanical  forces  on  the  one  side  or  the 
other  alone  determine  which  of  two  given  courses 
shall  be  taken ;  the  ideas  which  either,  or  both,  hold, 
the  role  of  intelligent  volition,  apart  from  their 
influence  in  the  manipulation  of  physical  force, 
play  no  real  part  in  human  society.  "Prussian- 
ism,"  Bismarckian  "blood  and  iron,"  are  merely 
political  expressions  of  this  belief  in  the  social 
field — the  belief  that  force  alone  can  decide  things; 
that  it  is  not  man's  business  to  question  authority 
in  politics  or  authority  in  the  form  of  inevitability 
in  nature.  It  is  not  a  question  of  who  is  right,  but 
of  who  is  stronger.  "Fight  it  out,  and  right  will 
be  on  the  side  of  the  victor" — on  the  side,  that  is, 
of  the  heaviest  metal  or  the  heaviest  muscle,  or, 
perhaps,  on  that  of  the  one  who  has  the  sun  at  his 
back,  or  some  other  advantage  from  external 
nature.  The  blind  material  things — not  the  seeing 
mind  and  the  soul  of  man — are  the  ultimate  sanc- 
tion of  human  society. 

Such  a  doctrine,  of  course,  is  not  only  profoundly 
anti-social:  it  is  anti-human — fatal  not  merely  to 
better  international  relations,  but,  in  the  end,  to 
the  degree  to  which  it  influences  human  conduct  at 
all,  to  all  those  large  freedoms  which  man  has  so 
painfully  won.  And  yet  it  is  an  integral  part  of 
the  militarist  outlook.  It  is  entirely  what  we 
would  expect,  that  the  most  warlike  people  now 
occupying  Europe — those  whose  presence  here  has 


Introductory  Summary  xlv 

no  justification  save  that  of  military  force,  and 
whose  history  has  been  called  a  "catalogue  of 
battles,"  because,  there  is  nothing  else  in  it — 
should  be  also  the  most  fatalistic  of  all  European 
populations. 

This  philosophy  makes  of  man's  acts,  not  some- 
thing into  which  there  enters  the  element  of  moral 
responsibility  and  free  voHtion,  something  apart 
from  and  above  the  mere  mechanical  force  of 
external  nature,  but  it  makes  man  himself  a  help- 
less slave;  it  implies  that  his  moral  efforts  and  the 
efforts  of  his  mind  and  understanding  are  of  no 
worth — that  he  is  no  more  the  master  of  his  con- 
duct than  the  tiger  of  his,  or  the  grass  and  trees  of 
theirs;  and  no  more  responsible. 

To  this  philosophy,  the  civilist  opposes  another: 
that  in  man  there  is  that  which  sets  him  apart 
from  the  plants  and  the  animals,  which  gives  him 
control  of  and  responsibility  for  his  social  acts; 
which  makes  him  the  master  of  his  social  destiny 
if  he  but  will  it ;  that  by  virtue  of  the  forces  of  his 
mind  he  may  go  forward  to  the  completer  conquest, 
not  merely  of  nature,  but  of  himself,  and  thereby, 
and  by  that  alone,  redeem  human  association 
from  the  evils  that  now  burden  it. 


Arms  and  Industry 

A  Study  of 

The  Foundations  of 
International  Polity 


THE  CASE  FOR  THE  REVISION  OF  CERTAIN  PRINCIPLES 
OF  STATECRAFT 

(An  address  delivered  in  the  Great  Hall  of  the  University  of 
Wurtzburg,  to  a  meeting  of  Students  convened  by  the  Rektor, 
Feb.  13,  1913.)* 

It  is  hardly  necessary,  I  take  it,  in  a  great  centre 
of  German  learning,  to  labour  the  point  that 
the  correction  of  any  widespread  misconception 
touching  large  human  issues,  or  the  correction  of 
any  misinterpretation  of  facts  or  false  reasoning 
concerning  them,  is  desirable  in  itself,  and  is  its 
own  justification,  even  when  the  immediate  practi- 

*  The  substance  of  this  lecture  was  also  delivered  to  students 
in  the  Universities  of  Berlin,  Leipzig,  Gottingen,  Heidelberg  and 
Munich  as  well  as  at  New  College,  Oxford. 

I 


2  Arms  and  Industry 

cal  import  is  not  apparent.  We  assume  that  the 
real  student  desires,  in  his  field  of  learning,  to  see 
things  as  they  are,  knowing  that,  if  his  interpreta- 
tion of  one  group  of  facts  is  radically  wrong,  his 
interpretation  of  all  other  related  facts  whatso- 
ever will  be  to  some  extent  distorted :  he  will  have 
to  twist  them  in  a  lesser  or  greater  degree  to  make 
them  fit  the  first  distortion.  And  though  to  cor- 
rect a  given  error  may  have  no  direct  bearing 
on  practical  affairs,  that  correction  will  certainly 
affect  the  interpretation  of  other  facts  which  may 
have  a  very  important  practical  bearing. 

Yet  all  such  corrections,  all  new  interpretations 
have  had  to  struggle  against  the  view  either  that 
their  recognition  is  practically  unimportant,  or 
that  it  may  lead  to  the  undermining  of  some  large 
body  of  general  doctrine,  the  retention  of  which  is 
deemed  of  great  practical  importance.  Probably 
all  that  the  contemporaries  of  Galileo  could  see  in 
his  contentions,  in  the  Copernican  controversy,  was 
that  they  tended  to  discredit  an  ancient  and  ven- 
erable faith  for  a  perfectly  futile  thing,  the  de- 
monstration that  the  position  or  the  movements  of 
the  world  on  which  we  live  were  not  what  they  had 
been  thought  to  be — "As  though  our  opinion  con- 
cerning it  could  alter  the  thing  one  way  or  another," 
we  can  imagine  the  "practical"  man  of  his  time 
declaring.  And  nearly  five  hundred  years  later, 
when  Darwin  gave  another  new  interpretation  of 
facts,  the  real  attitude  both  of  the  academic  world 
and  the  practical  man  was  very  similar :  it  was  felt 


The  Case  for  Revision  of  Ideas       3 

that  to  leave  undisturbed  the  ancient  doctrines 
concerned  so  deeply  with  the  daily  life  and  con- 
duct of  men,  and  upon  which  mankind  had  learned 
to  lean  for  guidance,  was  infinitely  more  important 
than  the  discussion  of  a  merely  zoological  or  even 
biological  truth,  which  had  no  direct  bearing  upon 
life  and  conduct. 

Yet  we  now  realize  that  in  these  cases,  as  in 
numberless  similar  ones  that  have  come  between, 
both  of  the  popular  assumptions  I  have  indicated 
were  wrong.  The  full  recognition  of  the  new 
truths  did  not  involve  the  collapse  of  the  general 
body  of  the  old  doctrine — it  left  all  that  was  of 
real  value  therein  undisturbed;  and  it  did  have 
very  great,  incalculable  practical  value.  Just 
imagine  the  general  opinion  of  GaHleo's  times 
having  been  triumphant,  the  new  heresy  success- 
fully extirpated,  and  the  geocentric  hypothesis 
imposed  as  a  dogma  not  to  be  questioned,  with  all 
that  told  against  it  suppressed.  It  is  certainly 
not  too  much  to  say  that  such  success  of  the  popu- 
lar and  orthodox  view  would  have  made  impossible 
the  modern  world  as  we  now  know  it,  reposing  as 
it  does  upon  a  basis  of  organised  knowledge,  with 
huge  populations  dependent  for  their  very  daily 
food  upon  the  use  of  such  organised  knowledge  in 
the  exploitation  of  the  universe.  So  with  Darwin's 
work.  It  would  be  a  very  ignorant  person  indeed 
to-day  who  would  dismiss  it  with  the  gibe  so  com- 
mon a  generation  since,  about  men  and  monkeys 
and  our  grandfathers'  tails.     We  know  that  the 


4  Arms  and  Industry 

hypothesis  has  profoundly  affected  our  concep- 
tions in  an  immense  area  of  himian  knowledge, 
and  by  so  doing  has  affected  human  society  and 
conduct  in  very  many  fields. 

Now,  this  attitude,  which  academic  authority  and 
popular  opinion  have  almost  invariably  assumed 
towards  the  correction  of  error  during  the  last  five 
hundred  years  in  Europe,  is  precisely  the  attitude 
now  adopted  towards  attempts  that  have  been 
made  by  a  small  band  of  men  in  Europe  of  late  to 
correct  certain  errors  in  prevailing  political  and 
economic  ideas.  Because  the  discussion  of  those 
ideas  has  been  associated  in  the  past  mainly  with 
the  effort  to  secure  international  peace,  the  "man 
of  the  day,"  as  someone  has  called  him  (or  the  "man 
of  yesterday,"  as  I  should  prefer  to  call  him),  can 
only  think  of  the  discussion  as  concerned  with  an 
effort  to  avoid  fighting;  the  promulgation  of  a 
doctrine  based  on  a  readiness  to  take  risks  in  the 
matter  of  our  country's  safety  and  interest  in  order 
to  avoid  sacrifices,  which,  however  sad  because 
involving  suffering  to  innocent  parties,  are  made 
readily  enough  in  the  field  of  industry  and  com- 
merce. This  "man  of  the  day"  is  apt  to  feel  that 
a  doctrine,  the  prompting  motive  of  which  is 
the  avoidance  of  suffering,  and  which,  to  at- 
tain that  end,  will  throw  discredit  upon  in- 
stincts of  patriotism  that  are  sacred  and  precious 
even  above  human  life,  cannot  make  any 
very  deep  appeal,  especially  when  we  remember 
that  more  lives  are  sacrificed  to  industry  than 


The  Case  for  Revision  of  Ideas       5 

to  war.  No  one  suggests  that  we  should  not 
bridge  continents  with  railroads  and  seas  with 
ships,  because  in  so  doing  we  sacrifice  Uves  with 
a  certainty  as  great  as  though  we  condemned, 
by  otir  deliberate  act,  thousands  of  men  to 
be  crushed  to  death  or  drowned  or  burnt  alive. 

I  think  it  is  quite  fair  to  say  this:  that  to  very 
many  Peace  advocacy  appears  as  made  up  in 
part  by  a  recoil  from  the  sacrifice  of  lives,  which, 
however,  is  considerably  less  than  that  which 
he  sees  going  on  around  him  every  day  in  the 
interests  merely  of  material  wealth  —  a  sacri- 
fice which  in  that  case  excites  no  protest;  and  in 
part  by  disparagement  of  such  things  as  national 
safety  and  honour,  which  he  regards  as  of  infinitely 
greater  worth  than  the  industries  and  commerce 
which  take  a  heavier  toll  of  Hfe  than  does  war. 
And  consequently,  looking  at  what  would  be 
achieved  by  the  change  and  what  is  jeopardised 
by  it,  he  opposes  to  all  ideas  which  seem  even 
remotely  to  be  concerned  with  schemes  of  inter- 
national peace,  either  a  ferocious  hostility  which 
he  feels  ought  to  be  excited  by  all  doctrines  that 
imply  indifference  to  his  country's  safety  and  in- 
terests, or  a  tolerant  contempt  which  he  would 
mete  out  to  all  sentimental  or  academic  futiUty, 
just  as  five  hundred  years  ago,  he  dismissed  the 
"theories "  of  Galileo  with  some  reference  to  every- 
body standing  on  their  heads,  and  fifty  years  ago 
the  theories  of  Darwin  by  some  reference  to 
monkeys  and  their  tails. 


6  Arms  and  Industry- 

May  I  say  that,  if  the  case  for  Pacifism  were 
what  I  have  just  indicated,  if  really  its  object  were 
merely  the  avoidance  of  suffering,  to  be  obtained 
at  the  price  of  national  jeopardy,  his  attitude 
would  be  entirely  justified;  and  I  hope  you  will 
not  think  me  callous  if  I  say  that  did  Pacifism 
offer  nothing  more  than  the  mere  avoidance  of 
that  physical  suffering  which  war  involves,  you 
would  not  find  me  here  to-night.  Because  the 
word  "peace"  generally  connotes  this  narrow  ob- 
jective, and  leaves  aside  altogether  what  is  really 
implied  in  our  attempt  to  correct  what  we  believe 
to  be  very  deep-seated  errors  in  human  relation- 
ship, I  almost  wish  that  that  word  could  never  be 
used.  Just  as  Galileo  knew  that  the  real  justifi- 
cation of  his  attempt  to  correct  prevailing  error 
was  not  a  trivial  point  as  to  the  exact  place  or 
shape  of  the  planet  on  which  we  live,  but  the  right 
understanding  of  the  physical  imiverse,  its  laws 
and  nature;  so  do  we  know  that  our  case  is  bound 
up  with  the  destruction  of  misconceptions  which 
distort  and  falsify  the  fundamental  principles  on 
which  human  society  is  based. 

What  I  have  to  urge  upon  your  attention,  there- 
fore, is  not  the  desirability  of  "Peace"  in  the  sense 
of  the  cessation  of  conflict,  still  less  of  a  cosmo- 
politanism which  asks  that  you  shall,  in  obedience 
to  some  abstract  ideal  of  instinctive  or  intuitive 
origin,  sacrifice  national  preferences  and  character- 
istics, or  even  prejudices;  or  of  any  other  cut-and- 
dried  political  doctrine  or  dogma.     If  "Peace" 


The  Case  for  Revision  of  Ideas       7 

and  "Internationalism"  meant  what  they  are 
generally  taken  to  mean,  the  whole  thing  would 
leave  me  cold.  But  I  want  to  urge  the  considera- 
tion of  certain  facts  and  forces,  the  significance  of 
which  is  for  the  most  part  ignored,  although  they 
must  profoundly  affect  principles  of  action  between 
men  that  cover  the  whole  field  of  human  associa- 
tion, affect  to  some  extent  the  form  and  character 
of  all  our  social  structure;  which  have  a  very  prac- 
tical bearing  upon  prevailing  conceptions  in  morals, 
legislation,  jurisprudence,  political  science  gen- 
erally, economics,  law,  and  the  interpretation  of 
history.  Their  full  realization  may,  indeed,  tend 
to  bring  into  relief  certain  general  principles  in  the 
mechanism  of  society  which,  if  sound,  may  do  as 
great  a  service  in  the  improvement  of  social  action 
as  that  done  in  the  improvement  of  thought  four 
or  five  centuries  since  by  the  general  adoption — 
or  revival — of  the  inductive  method  of  reasoning. 
It  is  not  a  question  for  the  moment  where  the  con- 
clusions upon  which  the  study  I  have  in  mind  may 
point — (though  I  want  you  to  believe  that  no  po- 
litical, religious,  national,  or  sentimental  preposses- 
sions of  any  kind  have  weighed  in  my  own  case,  and 
that  I  would  as  readily  have  drawn,  if  the  facts 
had  pointed  thereto,  exactly  contrary  conclusions, 
and  by  no  means  have  been  frightened  therefrom 
by  the  rattle  of  the  sabre) — but,  if  you  are  con- 
cerned at  all  with  the  large  issues  I  have  indi- 
cated, I  do  not  think  you  can  afford  to  ignore  the 
bearing  of  the  forces  in  question. 


8  Arms  and  Industry 

Nor  should  you  conclude  from  the  illustrations 
that  I  have  just  employed,  and  the  emphasis  I 
have  laid  on  the  importance  of  the  indirect  effects 
of  the  principles  I  want  you  to  investigate,  that 
their  direct  effect  is  insignificant.  However  much 
we  may  be  divided  in  other  aspects  of  the  problem 
of  war  and  national  defence,  we  are  all  accustomed 
to  say,  whether  we  believe  it  or  not,  that  those 
problems  are  both  morally  and  materially  the 
most  important  of  our  generation.  And  yet  we 
find  that  in  this  problem  we  are  not  facing  facts; 
that  we  proceed  habitually  upon  assumptions 
which  analysis  does  not  support,  that  we  are 
ignoring  changes  which  have  taken  place,  and 
basing  our  action  daily  upon  conceptions  which 
have  become  obsolete,  upon  imrealities,  sometimes 
upon  shams.* 

*Dr.  David  Jayne  Hill,  who  was  the  United  States  Ambass- 
ador to  Germany,  has  emphasized  this  stagnation  in  the  Science 
of  Statecraft  in  these  terms: 

"However  radical  the  transformation  of  the  nature  of  political 
power  may  be,  nothing  is  so  difficult  as  to  modify  its  traditions. 
.  .  .  Many  diplomatists  and  statesmen  who  count  themselves 
strictly  orthodox  still  consider  it  impossible  to  establish  any  other 
permanent  relations  between  States  than  those  of  mutual  fear 
and  distrust;  which  have,  they  claim,  always  existed  between 
nations,  and  must  exist  for  ever.  They  hold  that  history  con- 
firms their  doctrine;  and  that  States,  in  whatever  form  they  have 
existed,  are'mere  temporary  and  local  means  for  repressing  within 
themselves  the  aggressive  and  avaricious  instincts  of  human 
nature;  and  that  these  instincts  are  destined  forever  to  break 
forth  in  some  new  form  of  ferocity  and  destniction,  unless  they 
are  held  firmly  in  the  leash  by  the  hand  of  power.  Statesmen  of 
this  school  of  thought  have  little  faith  in  any  form  of  self -govern* 


The  Case  for  Revision  of  Ideas       9 

You  cannot  get  to  the  bottom  of  War  and  the 
conceptions  out  of  which  it  arises  without  taking 
stock  in  some  degree  of  all  social  and  political  ideas, 
without  putting  them  to  a  new  test.  And  no 
sound  idea  can  suffer  from  being  put  to  a  new  test ; 
all  ideas  are  Hkely  to  be  improved  by  it;  it  is  the 
only  means  by  which  fallacies  are  corrected.  If 
what  we  are  urging  with  reference  to  international 
politics  is  broadly  true,  then  in  much  of  our  general 
political  action,  not  merely  with  reference  to  one 
group  in  its  relation  to  another  group,  but  also 
to  a  large  extent  with  reference  to  the  relations  of 
men  individually  to  other  men,  we  are  misunder- 
standing some  of  the  fundamental  principles 
which  must  govern  their  life  in  communities  in 
order  to  insure  the  best  conditions  for  them:  are 
misunderstanding  the  mechanism  of  human  so- 
ciety, misreading  the  means  by  which  we  wring 
our  substance  from  the  earth,  failing  to  seize  the 
arrangement  most  advantageous  for  the  purpose 
of  carrying  on  our  war  with  nature. 

I  think  that  point  can  be  made  plain  immedi- 
ately if  we  get  clearly  in  our  minds  the  nature  of 

ment,  regard  the  idea  of  justice  as  a  purely  abstract  and  unreal- 
izable ideal,  and  consider  law  as  a  more  or  less  arbitrary  restraint 
upon  the  mass,  imposed  by  great  masters,  against  whose  authority 
the  natural  man  is  in  an  attitude  of  endless  secret  revolt. " 

The  view  of  the  "classic  diplomatists,"  as  Hill  calls  them,  is 
indeed  the  antithesis  of  that  development  of  Locke's  theory 
which  would  regard  the  whole  system  of  social  organization,  not 
as  something  "imposed  from  above  by  superior  power,  but  some- 
thing developed  from  within  by  the  free  rational  activity  of  man 
in  response  to  his  imperative  social  needs." 


lo  Arms  and  Industry 

that  main  conception,  the  fundamental  assump- 
tion concerning  the  relationship  of  states,  at  pres- 
ent universally  accepted,  which  we  challenge. 

That  assumption  is  not  always  very  clear  be- 
cause its  statement  almost  always  takes  a  negative 
form.     Thus  Major  Stewart  Murray: 

"A  nation's  only  hope  of  enduring  peace,  so  long  as 
it  has  anything  worth  taking  from  it,  depends  upon 
it  possessing  defensive  forces  sufficient  to  give  an  as- 
sailant no  reasonable  hope  of  success.  .  .  .  Peace 
depends  upon  the  armed  force  of  the  nations."* 

To  say  "Peace  depends  upon  the  armed  force 
of  the  nations"  is  exactly  equivalent  to  saying: 
"If  the  nations  had  no  armies  how  mtirderously 
they  would  go  to  war  with  one  another!  If  they 
had  no  battleships,  naval  engagements  between 
them  could  not  be  prevented;  the  armies  without 
soldiers  and  with  no  weapons  would  be  annihilat- 
ing; without  horses  the  cavalry  charges  would  be 
terrible,  without  guns  the  artillery  duels  appalling," 
The  author  means,  of  coturse,  that  Peace  depends 
upon  the  armed  forces  not  being  used,  and  to  pre- 
vent our  rival's  force  being  used  against  us  we  are 
compelled  to  oppose  an  equivalent  force  so  as  to 
cancel  it,  and  to  obtain  a  result  which  would  be 
obtained  with  far  more  certainty  if  there  were  no 
forces  that  either  the  one  or  the  other  could  use. 
If  neither  resorted  to  armed  force,  the  peace  would 
not — could  not — be  broken. 

*  "Future  Peace  of  the  Anglo  Saxon,"  p.  13.     (Watts  &  Co.) 


The  Case  for  Revision  of  Ideas      ii 

But  the  most  important  point  about  this  passage 
is  that  it  implies  as  a  thing  so  deep-seated  and  evi- 
dent as  not  to  be  worth  discussion,  a  universal 
belief  in  the  advantage  of  military  aggression. 

Why  is  it  certain,  in  the  view  of  this  author,  that 
force  will  be  used  "if  there  is  reasonable  hope 
of  success"?  Because,  presumably,  it  would  be 
advantageous  to  do  so.  I  am  not  aware  that  any- 
one has  yet  argued  that  foreign  nations  are  going 
to  attack  us  from  altruistic  motives — for  our  good. 

It  is  the  belief  in  the  advantage  of  successful 
attack  that  creates  armed  force — armies — and  so 
creates  the  armies  of  defence  to  resist  them. 

If  each  is  threatened,  it  is  because  we  all  believe 
that  military  force  can  be  used  to  promote  an  in- 
terest, and  consequently  will,  in  the  case  of  others, 
be  so  used  unless  we  can  prevent  it.  At  the  bot- 
tom of  the  whole  system  of  orthodox  statecraft  is 
the  assumption  that  advantage  accrues  to  success- 
ful aggression,  and  that,  as  Admiral  Mahan  tells 
us:  "  It  is  vain  to  expect  nations  to  act  consistently 
from  any  motive  other  than  that  of  interest.  .  .  . 
And  the  predatory  instinct  that  he  should  take 
who  has  the  power  siuvives." 

Now,  whether  it  is  true  that  it  is  vain  to  expect 
nations  to  act  otherwise  than  from  motives  of 
interest  I  am  not  for  the  moment  concerned  to 
show.  I  am  concerned  to  show  that  that  is  the 
assumption  of  orthodox  statecraft,  with  which  is 
associated  necessarily  the  further  assumption  that 
spoliation  of  rivals  is  to  the  interest  of  nations.     If 


12  Arms  and  Industry 

spoliation  were  not  presumed  to  be  to  their 
interest,  we  should  not  be  in  danger  of  it. 

If  we  can  keep  the  positive  instead  of  the  nega- 
tive form  of  the  proposition  before  us,  the  thing 
becomes  much  clearer:  we  must  defend  ourselves 
because  conquest,  spoliation,  is  advantageous. 

What  does  conquest,  spoliation,  imply?  It 
implies  that  it  is  more  advantageous  to  turn  our 
efforts  to  taking  another  nation's  wealth  than  to 
creating  our  own;  that  if  we  can  obtain  power  of 
coercion  over  other  men  we  can  compel  them  in 
some  form  or  other  to  work  for  us  instead  of  for 
themselves,  either  by  paying  us  tribute  or  giving 
conditions  in  trade  which  they  would  not  give  us 
unless  compelled;  that  they  can  be  made  to  sur- 
render a  portion  of  the  product  of  their  labour 
which  they  would  not  surrender  of  their  own  free 
will;  that  the  thing  really  prized  by  the  nations  is 
the  power  of  coercing  others;  that  this  tendency 
to  acquire  power  of  coercion  is  operating  all  the 
time  with  others,  and  that  we  must  be  in  a  position 
to  cancel  it. 

This  belief  in  the  value  of  the  power  of  coercion 
is  at  the  bottom,  not  only  of  orthodox  statecraft, 
of  the  belief  in  the  advantage  of  conquest,  but 
equally  of  the  belief  in  the  advantages  of  political 
privilege,  just  as  it  was  at  the  bottom  of  the  belief 
in  slavery  and  still  cruder  forms  of  spoliation. 

Now,  I  take  the  ground  that  an  examination  of 
the  facts,  of  the  results  yielded  by  this  general 
method  in  the  case  of  nations,  as  compared  with 


The  Case  for  Revision  of  Ideas      13 

the  results  yielded  by  a  certain  other  method, 
shows  this  assumption  to  be  false,  mistaken:  not, 
will  you  note,  that  it  is  ''immoral,''' — that  is  an- 
other story — but  false,  judged  in  the  light  of  those 
motives  of  interest  which  we  are  told  by  the 
defenders  of  the  system  are  its  foundation. 

I  want,  as  an  introduction  to  the  study  of  this 
subject,  to  give  you  a  hint  of  certain  mechanical 
forces  that  are  necessarily  set  in  motion,  as  soon 
as  men  begin  to  co-operate,  by  so  apparently 
simple  a  device  as  the  division  of  labour;  of  the 
process  by  which  these  forces  so  act  as  progres- 
sively to  nullify  the  efficacy  of  the  physical  coercion 
of  one  party  to  the  division  of  labour,  by  another, 
rendering  our  current  estimate  of  the  worth,  whether 
moral  or  material,  of  coercion  false,  because  it 
ignores  the  weight  of  these  forces. 

I  want  to  show  first  that  this  mode  of  social 
action, — according  to  which  it  is  to  our  interest 
to  act  indirectly  against  the  forces  of  Nature,  that 
is  to  say,  first  by  using  our  energy  to  secure  power 
over  someone  else,  and  then  using  that  power  to 
compel  him  to  apply  his  energy  to  Nature — is 
uneconomic  in  the  larger  sense  of  the  term; 
it  represents  a  waste  of  human  effort. 

The  exercise  of  coercion  over  other  men  neces- 
sarily presumes  resistance  (if  there  is  no  resistance 
coercion  is  not  necessary).  The  energy  expended 
is  met  by  the  resistance  of  the  **  coercee,"  and  to 
the  extent  to  which  such  resistance  is  effective  you 
get  merely  a  cancellation  of  force  or  energy,  which 


14  Arms  and  Industry 

is,  of  course,  quite  unproductive.  I  will  try  by  il- 
lustration to  make  clear  what  may  be  obscure  in 
abstract  definition. 

Here  are  two  men:  one  is  digging;  the  other  is 
standing  over  him  with  a  whip  or  a  weapon.  We 
are  apt  to  think  of  one  as  bond,  and  the  other  as 
free;  but  both  are  bond.  If  the  man  with  the 
whip  or  weapon  is  thirsty,  and  wants  to  go  to  the 
river  to  drink,  he  cannot:  his  slave  would  run 
away.  He  is  sleepy  and  wants  to  sleep,  equally  he 
cannot.  He  would  like  to  hunt ;  equally  he  cannot. 
He  is  bound,  tied  to  the  slave  much  as  the  slave 
is  tied  to  him.  His  work  of  control,  compulsion, 
watching,  whatever  you  care  to  call  it,  is  not  di- 
rectly productive  at  all;  it  is  only  indirectly 
productive,  necessitated  by  the  resistance  of 
the  slave.  If  we  can  imagine  the  slave  driver  or 
owner,  wearied  with  this  arrangement,  saying  to 
the  slave — "I  am  going  hunting,  and  if  you  will 
stay  here  and  do  this  task  during  the  day,  I  will 
give  you  half  of  the  proceeds  of  my  hunt,"  and  the 
slave  agreeing  to  this,  you  double  the  productivity 
of  the  two  men;  you  have  two  producing  instead 
of  one.  Indeed,  you  have  more,  because  if  the 
offer  is  such  as  really  to  involve  a  voluntary  agree- 
ment on  the  part  of  the  slave — a  desire  to  do  the 
work  in  order  to  get  the  reward — all  the  energy 
which  the  slave  originally  devoted  to  looking  for 
a  chance  of  escape  is  now  liberated  for  his  task. 
This  is  the  economic  case  against  slavery,  as  at 
bottom  it  is  the  economic  case  against  robbery, 


The  Case  for  Revision  of  Ideas      15 

conquest,  and  every  other  form  of  human  coercion, 
which  means  to  some  degree  always  the  cancell- 
ing of  energy  by  resistance,  instead  of  its  fruit- 
ful use  against  Nature,  which  is  the  final  source 
of  all  wealth  however  obtained. 

I  can  illustrate  a  further  development  of  this 
thesis  in  another  way.  Here  are  two  tribes  of  one 
hundred  men  each  living  on  opposite  sides  of  a 
river,  both  engaged  in  growing  corn  or  some  other 
simple  form  of  agriculture.  It  occurs  one  day  to 
one  of  the  tribes  that  it  would  be  much  simpler 
to  go  and  take  the  com  of  the  other  tribe  than  to 
labour  at  growing  com  themselves.  So  some  fifty 
of  the  best-trained  men  sally  forth  to  despoil  their 
neighbours.  The  second  tribe  resist:  some  of  the 
fifty  are  killed,  a  portion  of  the  com  is  captured.. 
The  first  tribe  then  argue  that  they  did  not  employ 
force  enough,  and  they  begin  to  increase  the  num- 
ber of  their  fighting  men  and,  by  definite  training, 
their  efficiency.  The  second  tribe,  determined  not 
again  to  be  the  victims  of  spoliation,  do  the  same, 
and  you  start  a  competition  of  armaments,  with 
this  result,  that  at  the  next  foray,  you  find  seventy- 
five  men  of  the  first  tribe  ranged  in  battle  against 
seventy-five  men  of  the  second.  We  will  assume 
that  the  first  tribe  is  successful,  beats  the  seventy- 
five  of  the  defenders — who,  like  themselves, 
have  been  devoting  their  energies  to  warlike  train- 
ing, and  not  to  the  production  of  grain — and  as 
the  result  of  their  victory  they  capture  grain 
produced  by  twenty-five  men.     Thus,  the  result 


i6  Arms  and  Industry 

of  labour  (in  warlike  preparations,  the  production 
of  weapons,  training,  etc.),  of  seventy-five  men 
yields  the  amount  of  wealth  represented  by  the 
labour  of  twenty-five  men.  Would  not  the  result 
have  been  exactly  three  times  as  great  if  their 
force  had  been  turned  ^directly  against  Nature 
instead  of  using  it  against  men? 

But  that  by  no  means  covers,  even  in  fundamen- 
tal principle,  the  whole  of  the  case.  It  will  have 
occurred  to  you,  of  course,  that  the  embryo  of 
society  is  to  be  found  in  the  division  of  labour.  If 
we  were  not  compelled  to  divide  our  labour,  if  in 
order  to  get  what  we  want  it  were  not  necessary 
for  one  to  do  one  thing  and  one  another,  not  only 
would  there  be  no  trade  and  commerce — there 
would  be  no  courts  of  law,  no  society  at  all.  If 
each  could  really  suffice  for  himself,  without  the 
co-operation  of  others,  we  should  be  just  in  the 
condition  of  the  herbivorous  animals,  feeding  upon 
the  plants,  indifferent  as  to  whether  all  other 
individuals  of  their  own  species  disappear  or 
not — truly  independent,  truly  self-sufficing,  and 
therefore  with  no  obHgations  to  others,  and  others 
having  no  obligations  to  us.  But  from  the  mo- 
ment that  we  wear  clothes,  or  eat  bread,  or  have 
our  teeth  filled,  or  our  appendix  removed,  we  cease 
to  be  independent,  we  cease  to  be  indifferent  to 
the  disappearance  of  others  of  our  species :  really 
we  cannot  remove  our  own  appendix.  And  if  you 
make  even  a  cursory  list  of  the  number  of  people 
that  are  necessary  to  supply  your  clamant  daily 


The  Case  for  Revision  of  Ideas      17 

needs,  you  will  find,  of  coiirse,  that  they  number 
not  half  a  dozen,  or  a  dozen,  or  even  hundreds, 
but  if  you  make  the  calculation  correctly,  hun- 
dreds of  thousands.  And  if  you  have  ever  dreamed 
dreams  of  an  ideal  world  in  which  you  would  live 
as  part  of  some  simple  village  commimity,  inde- 
pendent of  the  rest  of  the  world,  I  wonder  whether 
you  have  fully  considered  all  that  is  meant  by  the 
surrendering  of  such  things  as  literature,  music, 
books,  being  able  to  hear  from  your  friends  and 
writing  to  them,  having  an  anaesthetic  when  your 
leg  is  to  be  removed  as  the  result  of  an  accident, 
saving  your  women  from  excessive  labour — ^for  in 
all  ideal  village  communities  the  women  are  old  at 
twenty-five,  as  the  result  of  unceasing  physical 
fatigue — of  seeing  something  of  the  world,  or 
keeping  your  mother's  portrait  when  she  is  dead? 
For  if  you  are  not  prepared  to  give  up  these  things, 
if  you  desire  even  the  smallest  proportion  of  them, 
you  must  resign  yourself  to  the  existence  of  a 
complex  community,  and  to  communication  with 
foreign  countries,  invention,  laboratories,  scienti- 
fic investigation.  And  if  you  calcvdate  all  that 
this  means,  you  will  find  that  you  are  depending, 
not  upon  this  little  community,  but  upon  hundreds 
of  thousands,  millions  of  men,  whom  you  have 
never  seen  and  never  can  see,  many  living  on  the 
other  side  of  the  world,  dependent  upon  them,  it 
may  be,  for  your  very  existence,  as  I  shall  shortly 
show. 

But  the  important  thing  in  this  is  that  by  divi- 


1 8  Arms  and  Industry 

sion  of  labour  you  have  created  a  condition  of 
dependence  upon  others,  and  that  dependence 
upon  others  necessarily  implies  a  limitation  of  the 
force  which  you  can  use  against  these  others. 
Even  in  slavery,  if  the  master  is  dependent  upon 
the  labour  of  the  slaves,  the  force  he  can  use 
against  them  is  limited — he  cannot  kill  them.  As 
the  division  of  labour  increases  in  complexity,  a 
progressive  stultification  of  force  takes  place,  as 
I  have  detailed  elsewhere. 

The  fact  that  complete  interdependence  means 
the  complete  stultification  of  force  is  illustrated 
by  the  position  of  two  men  in  a  boat  of  whom  I 
read  once  in  a  book  of  adventure.  The  boat  was 
leaky,  the  sea  heavy,  and  the  shore  a  long  way 
off.  It  took  all  the  efforts  of  the  one  man  to 
row,  and  of  the  other  to  bale.  If  either  had 
ceased  both  would  have  drowned.  At  one  point 
the  rower  threatened  the  baler  that  if  he  did  not 
bale  with  more  energy  he  would  throw  him  over- 
board ;  to  which  the  baler  made  the  obvious  reply 
that,  if  he  did,  he  (the  rower)  would  certainly 
drown  also.  And  as  the  rower  was  really  depend- 
ent upon  the  baler,  and  the  baler  upon  the  rower, 
neither  could  use  force  against  the  other.  The 
threat  of  death  itself  became  ineffective  in  such 
circumstances. 

To  the  degree  then  to  which  interdependence  is 
complete,  force  becomes  ineffective. 

But  I  want  to  indicate  certain  other  factors  that 
operate.     Imagine  two  villages  separated  for  most 


The  Case  for  Revision  of  Ideas      19 

months  of  the  year  by  an  impenetrable  swamp. 
In  this  condition  each  village  is  compelled  to  pro- 
duce nearly  all  that  it  needs  itself — the  condition 
of  most  villages  in  Europe  a  generation  or  two  ago. 
But  imagine  that  the  swamp  has  been  cut  by  a 
canal,  and  that  the  situation  of  one  of  these  vil- 
lages is  particularly  suitable  for  the  production 
of  foodstuffs,  and  the  other  for  the  production 
of  metals  and  fuel.  What  will  inevitably  happen 
is  that,  as  the  result  of  this  improvement  in 
communication  and  cheapening  of  transport,  one 
village  will  be  mainly  engaged  upon  producing 
foodstuffs,  and  the  other  upon  producing  coal  and 
iron.  In  a  greater  or  lesser  degree  they  will 
make  an  exchange  of  their  products.  Now,  in 
the  first  condition,  where  there  was  no  exchange, 
and  where  each  village  produced  all  that  it  needed, 
one  can  imagine  the  men  of  the  first  village  attack- 
ing the  second,  raiding  it,  carrying  off  its  goods, 
and  not  themselves  suffering  by  the  annihilation 
even  of  the  second  village.  (It  was  the  condition 
of  border  villages  a  century  or  two  ago.)  But 
after  the  construction  of  the  canal,  when  the 
improvement  of  communication  has  led  them  to 
divide  their  labour,  it  would  serve  little  purpose  for 
the  miners  to  wage  war  against  the  food-producers ; 
and  if  in  doing  so  they  wiped  them  out  in  the  old- 
fashioned  way,  they  would  be  threatened  by 
starvation.  And  the  condition  of  interdependence 
would  be  none  the  less  even  if  it  were  indirect — 
that  is  to  say,  if  one  village,  mainly  agricultural, 


20  Arms  and  Industry 

annoyed  at  paying  too  much  for  its  implements, 
raided  a  second  village  where  they  were  made, 
and  ruined  the  purchasing  power  of  this  village  so 
that  it  could  no  longer  buy  the  coal  of  a  third  vil- 
lage which  happened  to  be  the  main  market  of  the 
agriculturists  of  the  first  village.  Although  you 
may  find  your  market  in  consumer  A,  you  will 
ruin  it,  perhaps,  by  attacking  B,  upon  whom  A  is 
dependent. 

Now,  you  know,  of  course,  that  that  is  the  con- 
dition of  the  modem  world.  The  intercommunica- 
tion exemplified  by  the  canal,  which  renders 
possible  the  extension  of  the  division  of  labour  as 
between  otherwise  separated  communities,  and 
without  which  such  division  of  labour  is  not 
possible,  is  the  characteristic  factor  of  our  time. 
I  think  it  is  certainly  true  to  say  that  one  hundred 
years  ago  communication  was  less  effective  in 
Europe  than  it  had  been  two  thousand  years  pre- 
viously. But  this  last  one  hundred  years  has 
drawn  capitals  at  opposite  sides  of  the  world  more 
closely  together,  and  placed  them  in  more  intimate 
communication  than  neighbouring  country  towns 
in  the  same  State  were  in  before  the  day  of  steam 
and  telegraphy.  And  yet  we  assume  that  the  rela- 
tionships between  these  groups,  transformed  as 
they  must  be  by  this  marvellous  new  element 
of  interdependence,  are  exactly  what  they  were 
before  it  existed.  I  am  not  exaggerating.  It  is 
positively  laid  down  by  our  greatest  authorities  on 
the  relations  of  nations,  that  the  factor  of  power, 


The  Case  for  Revision  of  Ideas     21 

of  force,  is  what  it  was  in  the  days  of  Caesar,  of 
Machiavelli,  of  Clauserwitz;  that  of  fundamental 
change  there  is  none.  Yet  the  factor  of  communi- 
cation represents  progressive  and  dynamic  forces 
which  must  fundamentally  transform  the  relation- 
ships between  the  communities  affected  by  them. 
That  canal,  obviously  representing  a  revolution  in 
the  relationship  of  those  two  villages,  is  yet  declared 
by  the  wise  men  of  those  two  villages  in  no  way 
to  affect  that  relationship! 

It  is,  of  course,  not  the  mere  fact  of  contact 
which  has  rendered  them  interdependent  but  the 
division  of  labour  which  that  improvement  of 
communication  has  brought  about — the  new  fact 
that  the  prosperity  of  either  of  these  communities 
is  conditional  upon  the  due  performance  of  its 
functions  by  the  other. 

Not  only  does  existing  political  and  economic 
literature  still  employ  the  terminology  of  inter- 
national conditions  which  have  in  fact  disappeared, 
but  the  underlying  ideas  of  such  literature  ignore 
characteristic  developments  of  our  time.  If  one 
compares  an  average  modem  treatise  on  a  problem 
of  international  politics — whether  it  takes  the 
form  of  a  leading  article  in  a  newspaper  or  the 
more  pretentious  treatment  of  a  Quarterly 
Review,  or  the  books  of  any  recognized  authority 
on  the  subject — with  a  corresponding  treatise  of 
the  eighteenth  century  it  will  be  found  that  the 
terminology  and  ideas  are  fundamentally  identi- 
cal, the  evident  assumption  on  the  part  of  the 


22  Arms  and  Industry 

twentieth-century  writer  being  that  the  essential 
facts  of  the  problem  have  not  changed.  Yet 
the  facts  have  so  changed  as  to  render  what  were 
axioms  in  the  eighteenth  century  absurdities  in 
the  twentieth. 

The  whole  case  of  the  relation  of  military  power 
to  social  and  economic  advantage,  the  extent  to 
which  the  general  well-being  of  one  group  can  be 
advanced  by  military  domination  over  another, 
or  to  which  the  interlacing  of  interests  checks 
the  useful  or  effective  imposition  of  such  dom- 
ination, demands  restatement  in  the  terms 
of  the  developments  of  the  last  thirty  or  forty 
years. 

Take,  for  instance,  the  general  assumptions — 

1.  That    conquered    territory    adds    to    the 

wealth  of  the  conquering  nation;  that  it 
can  be  "owned"  in  the  way  that  a  per- 
son or  a  corporation  would  own  an 
estate ; 

2.  That  military  power  is  a  means  of  imposing 

upon  other  countries  economic  conditions 
favourable  to  the  nation  exercising  it ; 

3.  That  nations  are  economic  units — "com- 

peting business  firms,"  as  one  great 
military  authority  recently  called  them; 

and  test  their  reality  by  the  facts — 

I .  That  wealth  in  conquered  territory  remains 
in  the  hands  of  the  inhabitants;  special 


The  Case  for  Revision  of  Ideas     23 

taxation  or  tribute  being  a  Roman  or 
feudal  contrivance,  more  and  more  dif- 
ficult of  application  to,  and  unprofit- 
able in,  modem  administrative  methods 
by  reason  of  that  intangibility  of 
wealth,  which  mutual  dependence  of 
peoples,  due  to  the  division  of  labour 
cutting  across  frontiers,  has  brought 
about. 

2.  That   the   economic   conditions   in   lesser 

States  (e.  g.,  Sweden,  Holland,  Belgittm, 
Switzerland)  are  just  as  good  as  in  the 
States  exercising  great  military  power 
{e.  g.,  Russia,  Germany,  Austria).  That 
the  foreign  trade  of  most  great  States  is 
mainly  with  countries  over  which  they 
exercise  no  political  control.  Great  Brit- 
ain does  twice  as  much  trade  with  for- 
eign countries  as  with  her  Colonies  (which 
she  does  not  control).  The  enormous 
expansion  of  German  trade,  mainly  in 
coimtries  Hke  Russia,  the  United  States, 
South  America,  owes  nothing  to  her 
military  power. 

3.  That  great  industrial  nations  are  not  eco- 

nomic units;  international  trade  is  not 
exchanged  between  corporations  known 
as  "Britain,"  "Germany,"  etc.,  but  is 
a  process  of  complex  operations  divided 
infinitely  between  individuals;  a  Bir- 
mingham ironmaster  sells  his  engines  to 


24  Arms  and  Industry 

a  Brazilian  coffee-planter,  who  is  able 
to  buy  them  because  he  sells  his  coffee 
to  a  merchant  in  Havre,  who  sells  it  to  a 
Westphalian  town  manufacturing  rails 
for  Siberia,  which  buys  them  because 
peasants  are  growing  wheat  as  the  result 
of  the  demand  in  Lancashire,  which  is 
manufacturing  cotton  for  Indian  coolies 
growing  tea  for  sheep-farmers  in  Austra- 
lia, who  are  able  to  buy  it  because  they 
sell  wool  to  a  Bradford  merchant,  who 
manufactures  it  because  he  is  able  to 
sell  cloth  to  a  petroleum-refiner  in  Baku, 
who  is  able  to  buy  good  clothing  because 
he  is  selling  petrol  to  the  users  of  auto- 
mobiles in  Paris.  How  can  such  an 
operation,  which  is  typical  of  most  inter- 
national trade,  be  described  as  the  com- 
petition of  rival  units — such  as  Great 
Britain,  Germany,  France,  Brazil,  or 
Russia? 

And  these  very  simple  facts  our  most  pretentious 
statecraft  ignores.  Until  they  are  better  under- 
stood there  can  be  no  permanent  solution  of  what 
are  the  most  insistent  and  pressing  problems  of 
our  time,  no  advance  towards  a  better  general 
condition. 

Now,  I  am  talking,  I  hope,  to  good  Germans — 
that  is  to  say,  to  men  who  if  they  had  to  choose 
between  the  interests  of  their  fellow-countrymen 


The  Case  for  Revision  of  Ideas     25 

and  the  interests  of  strangers  would  choose  the 
interests  of  their  countrymen.  In  the  same  way 
I  hope  I  am  a  good  EngHshman,  in  the  sense  that 
if  I  had  to  make  a  similar  choice  I  would  decide 
unhesitatingly  in  the  favour  of  those  who  touch 
me  nearly  in  my  daily  life,  to  whom  I  have  a 
definite  and  visible  responsibility,  in  preference 
to  those  who,  on  my  part,  I  do  not  know  and 
cannot  know.  If  I  believed  that  there  was  a  con- 
flict of  interests  between  Great  Britain  and  Ger- 
many, I  should  be  for  Great  Britian  and  against 
Germany.  And  if  the  doctrines  most  in  favour 
with  the  political  philosophers,  the  statesmen,  the 
newspaper  writers,  of  our  respective  countries,  are 
true,  that  conflict  is  inevitable.  So  long  as  Britons 
believe  that  their  wealth  and  power  can  be  lost 
and  transferred  to  another  nation  as  the  result  of 
a  single  naval  defeat,  so  long  as  Germans  believe 
that  they  will  always  be  excluded  from  their  fair 
share  of  the  world's  wealth  unless  they  are  able 
to  back  their  claims  by  force,  why,  inevitably,  there 
will  be  a  competition  for  the  possession  of  force. 
Britons  will  always  reply  to  any  increase  in  the 
German  navy  by  a  greater  increase,  and  Ger- 
mans will  never  be  content  that  a  rival  nation  shall 
have  an  overpowering  preponderance  of  force 
throughout  the  world.  Discussion,  even,  will 
hardly  be  possible;  the  whole  relationship  will  be 
coloured  by  the  feeling  that  our  interests  are  not 
indeed  common,  but  rival.  The  outcome  is  the 
armament  rivalry  now  in  progress.     Its  risks  as 


26  Arms  and  Industry 

well  as  its  limits  are  obvious.  The  risks  are  ill-feel- 
ing, suspicion,  and  temper,  and  the  fact  that,  in  the 
absence  of  any  necessary  cause  of  dispute,  the 
armaments  themselves  become  one.  When  an  in- 
cident like  the  Dogger  Bank  affair  takes  place,  war 
is  upon  us  without  either  party  having  planned  it 
or  knowing  what  it  is  really  about.  And  the 
practical  limits  of  the  policy  are  equally  evident. 
If  our  expenditure  goes  on  increasing  during  the 
next  ten  years  at  the  ratio  of  the  last  ten  years, 
war  itself  will  become  less  burdensome  than  armed 
peace. 

You  will,  of  course,  note  this,  that  if  those  of  the 
newer  school  are  wrong,  if  nations  are  necessarily 
rivals,  and  must  decide  their  relationship  by  one 
dominating  the  other,  then  it  does  not  matter 
whether  you  give  attention  to  these  facts  or  not. 
But  if  we  are  right — and  the  curious  thing  is  that 
whenever  our  case  is  studied  we  are  told  that  we 
are  right — why,  then  it  matters  all  the  world,  be- 
cause then  these  conflicts  are  not  inevitable  at  all, 
not  due  to  any  necessary  divergence  of  interests, 
but  chiefly  due  to  the  fact  that  we  do  not  happen 
to  have  studied  our  interests.  For  note  also  this, — 
that  wrong  opinion  about  a  matter  of  this  kind  gives 
the  same  resulting  action  "as  though  the  opinion 
were  well  founded.  If  we  falsely  conclude  that 
nations  are  rivals,  we  shall  fight  just  as  though 
we  really  were  rivals.  But  war  then  becomes  sim- 
ply a  question  of  whether  we  shall  see  the  facts  or 
fail  to  see  them.     And  I  would  also  call  your  at- 


The  Case  for  Revision  of  Ideas     27 

tention  to  this, — that,  though  you  may  not  draw 
the  conclusions  which  I  draw,  the  facts  upon  which 
I  base  them  concern  any  policy,  any  principle  of 
international  action,  which  you  may  favour,  con- 
cern indeed  all  social  organization  national  as 
much  as  international. 

An  English  writer,  somewhat  of  the  Clauserwitz 
school,  lays  down  this  rule: 

A  prudent  statesman,  before  letting  himself  be 
drawn  into  a  quarrel  with  another  State,  will  take 
pains  to  reach  a  true  estimate  of  the  importance  of  the 
point  in  dispute,  both  to  his  own  State  and  to  the 
antagonist ;  for  in  proportion  as  a  community  finds  its 
being  and  its  well-being  bound  up  with  a  particular 
purpose,  the  more  intense  and  persistent  will  be  its 
exertions  for  the  assertion  of  that  purpose.  If  then, 
I  commit  my  people  to  a  war  for  something  that  turns 
out  to  be  a  mere  whim,  they  will  sooner  or  later  grow 
tired  of  the  struggle ;  and  if  the  conditions  on  which  I 
propose  to  insist  involve  the  ruin  of  the  State  opposed 
to  me,  the  people  of  that  State  will  only  grow  more 
determined  and  more  desperate  as  the  struggle  pro- 
ceeds. This  disparity  of  motive  for  exertion  may  go 
far  to  compensate  for  almost  any  degree  of  inequality 
between  the  real  strength  of  the  two  opponents. 

The  beginning  of  war,  then,  is  the  purpose  in  view. 
From  a  purpose  which  is  plain  you  may  get  a  well- 
conducted  war;  from  a  purpose  about  which  you 
are  not  clear  you  never  can.  Unless  you  know  what 
you  want,  you  cannot  possibly  tell  whether  war  is  the 
appropriate  way  of  getting  it ;  therefore,  in  that  case, 
the  decision  to  go  to  war  is  foolish.     Moreover,  unless 


28  Arms  and  Industry 

you  know  what  you  want  you  can  hardly  manage 
your  war  properly — that  is,  so  as  to  get  what  you 
want.  The  starting-point  of  a  good  war  is,  therefore, 
a  purpose  necessary  to  your  State  and  clearly  under- 
stood by  your  statesmen.  Thus,  the  foundation  of 
success  in  war  is  sound  policy,  without  which  the 
greatest  generals  and  the  finest  armies  come  to  ruin.* 

Even,  therefore,  if  you  believe  that  nations  are 
necessarily  rivals,  and  must  inevitably  fight  out 
their  differences  by  arms,  yet  nevertheless  your 
policy  must  take  cognisance  of  the  facts  to  which 
I  appeal. 

Now,  all  those  points,  which  are  a  necessary 
part  of  what  I  believe  is  bound  to  be  a  definite 
science,  are  as  much  the  concern  of  the  nationalist 
statesman  as  of  the  internationalist  statesman ;  as 
much  the  concern  of  those  who  believe  that  the 
employment  of  military  force  can  be  an  instru- 
ment of  national  advantage  as  of  those  who  be- 
lieve that  such  means  are  ineffective,  and  should 
be  replaced  by  the  international  organization  of 
society. 

I  would  indicate  a  few  points  on  which  atten- 
tion might  be  centred : 

I.  How  far  have  modem  wealth  and  trade 
become  intangible  as  regards  mihtary 
conquest,  owing  to  the  development  of 
credit,  and  the  interdependence  of  eco- 
nomic centres  which  this  involves? 

•  War  and  Policy,  by  Prof.  Spenser  Wilkinson,  pp.  394,  395. 
(Constable,  London). 


The  Case  for  Revision  of  Ideas     29 

2.  To  what  extent  does  the  greater  complex- 

ity of  the  modem  industrial  organ- 
ism harass  or  paralyze  the  employment 
of  existing  military  machinery  (e.g., 
could  States  like  Germany  feed  indus- 
trial populations  for  any  considerable 
period  after  a  general  mobilization,  the 
interruption  of  communications,  and 
the  disturbance  of  the  credit  system)  ? 

3.  To  what  extent  do  these  factors  involve 

the  futility  of  the  employment  of  mili- 
tary force  to  commercial  ends,  and  how 
does  the  prosperity  of  the  lesser  States 
bear  on  the  general  question  of  the  rela- 
tion of  military  power  and  prestige  to 
economic  advantage? 

4.  How  far  has  the  development  of  a  cheap 

press  and  other  means  of  propaganda 
and  agitation  given  such  strength  to 
local  autonomy  as  to  render  the  imposi- 
tion of  military  force  in  fields  other 
than  the  economic  one  impossible  (e.  g., 
what  lessons  are  to  be  drawn  from 
the  grant  of  a  constitution  to  Alsace- 
Lorraine,  the  recent  breakdown  of  the 
French  colonial  fiscal  system,  etc.)  ? 

Whatever  final  conclusion  we  may  draw,  the 
facts  are  worth  more  study  than,  for  the  most 
part,  they  get.  To  deprecate  such  study  is  to 
argue  that,  in  one  of  the  most  difficult  problems 


30  Arms  and  Industry 

of   our  civilization,  ignorance  and   prejudice  are 
better  guides  than  knowledge  and  wisdom. 

Of  course,  you  may  take  the  ground — we  are  all 
apt  to  take  this  ground,  especially,  I  believe,  we 
English — that  if  only  other  nations  would  act  as 
you  act,  there  would  be  an  end  to  the  problem; 
that  you — or  we,  for  I  am  merely  voicing  a  point 
of  view  that  I  have  heard  expressed  in  exactly 
identical  terms  in  England,  France,  America, 
Austria,  Italy,  Mexico,  Monaco,  as  well  as  in 
Germany — do  not  desire  to  commit  aggression 
upon  any  one,  that  other  nations  could  all  disarm 
to-morrow  with  safety  so  far  as  you  are  concerned ; 
that  whatever  may  be  the  misconceptions  which 
give  rise  to  misunderstandings  of  interest  and  con- 
flicts and  collisions  between  nations,  you  do  not 
share  them,  and  that  if  only  the  world  had  the 
political  wisdom  vouchsafed  to  the  British,  or 
the  French,  or  the  Germans,  or  the  Austrians,  or 
the  Americans,  or  the  Mexicans,  or  Monagasque,  as 
the  case  may  be,  international  problems  would 
disappear;  that,  when  we  talk  of  the  inevitable 
struggle  for  life  among  nations,  we  mean  that  it  is 
only  the  other  nations  that  are  struggling;  when 
our  Homer  Leas  or  Bemhardis  talk  of  the  universal 
law  of  conflict,  of  human  passion  and  pugnacity, 
they  mean  that  the  nation  of  the  writer  is  exempt- 
ed by  Providence  from  universal  law  and  universal 
passion.  You  may  say  that  when  these  masters 
of  statecraft  lay  down  with  such  dogmatism  that 
each   State  is   necessarily   a   "predatory   entity, 


The  Case  for  Revision  of  Ideas      31 

restrained  only  by   the  resistance  that  it  may 
encounter,"  they  refer  only  to  other  States. 

If  you  say  this  "basic  assumption"  of  state 
craft,  as  De  Gartden  calls  it,  is  not  that  we  should 
act  in  such  a  way,  but  that  is  the  way  we  must 
expect  others  to  act  towards  us,  then  we  do  never- 
theless believe  that  such  is  the  prevailing  doctrine, 
but  that  we  happen  to  be  free  from  an  error  which 
enslaves  the  rest  of  the  world.  It  is  a  little  diffi- 
cult to  discuss  politics  on  the  basis  that  Provi- 
dence has  so  created  us  as  to  be  free  from  error 
common  to  all  foreigners ;  but  even  if  we  take  that 
view,  it  is  evident  that  our  burden  is  the  direct 
result  of  prevailing  error,  since  we  are  compelled 
to  do  our  part  in  the  maintenance  of  a  general  sys- 
tem in  which  we  do  not  believe,  because  others  are 
mistaken  as  to  what  it  can  accomplish — and  it  is 
also  c^ddent  that  we  have  a  direct  interest  in  the 
destruction  of  such  error  by  the  exposure  of  the 
misconceptions  which  have  provoked  it.  And  if 
you  take  the  ground  that  it  is  no  good  our  interest- 
ing ourselves  in  the  matter,  since  it  is  the  foreigners 
who  are  the  fools,  as  Dr.  Johnson  would  have  said, 
then  you  take  the  ground  that  German  intellectual 
influence — or  British  I  should  say  if  I  were  talking 
to  a  British  audience — is  of  no  weight  in  the  world, 
that  the  political  thought  of  one  group  does  not 
affect  that  of  another,  that  British  Parliamentary 
government  has  not  influenced  the  general  form  of 
representative  government  throughout  the  world, 
that  the  French  Revolution  and  the  ideas  which  pre- 


32  Arms  and  Industry 

ceded  it  and  provoked  it  had  nothing  to  do  with  that 
movement  of  the  generation  that  followed  it — the 
revolt  of  Spanish  America,  the  movement  which 
swept  through  the  Italian  States,  as  well  as  the  Ger- 
man states  and  put  Europe  and  the  Western  Hemi- 
sphere in  the  melting-pot.  We  are  to  assume  that 
Karl  Marx  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  Socialistic 
ferment  that  permeated,  in  the  generation  that 
followed  him,  most  of  Western  Europe;  or,  if  you 
go  into  other  fields,  that  Luther  played  no  part 
in  religious  thought  outside  the  town  of  Wurtem- 
berg,  Calvin  outside  that  of  Geneva,  or  that  Dar- 
win only  transformed  "English"  biology,  what- 
ever that  might  be. 

Did  you  ever  know  a  single  idea  that  mattered 
in  the  affairs  of  men — whether  in  the  field  of 
industry,  or  medicine,  or  philosophy,  or  politics, 
or  sociology,  or,  for  that  matter,  in  dress  or  diet 
or  entertainment — that  could  for  long  remain  the 
exclusive  possession  of  a  single  nation  in  the 
Western  World?  Yet  we  take  the  ground  that  a 
conception  fundamentally  affecting  some  of  the 
greatest  problems  of  life  can  animate  the  minds  of 
forty  million  British  or  sixty  million  Germans  more 
or  less,  and  have  no  effect  upon  the  minds  and 
conduct  of  the  rest  of  the  world. 

Such  a  condition — that  the  knowledge  and  ideas 
of  one  group  do  not  affect  the  conduct  and  char- 
acter of  others,  that  advance  is  not  the  common 
work  of  mankind  but  is  a  matter  of  separate  and 
independent  acts — has  never  been  true  of  any 


The  Case  for  Revision  of  Ideas     33 

period  of  written  history,  and  is  certainly  not  more 
likely  to  be  true  of  ours  than  of  previous  periods. 
The  moral  and  intellectual  interdependence  of 
mankind  long  antedates  its  material  or  economic 
interdependence ;  it  has  been  an  outstanding  factor 
in  the  development  of  all  past  civilizations,  and  is 
certainly  not  likely  to  play  a  smaller  rdle  in  ours. 
Indeed,  it  is  just  the  simple  truth  to  say  that  we 
all  owe  our  civilization  to  foreigners,  that  if  each  of 
us  could  have  excluded  "foreign"  ideas  from  our 
political  groups  our  civilization  would  still  be 
represented  by  the  stone  axe  and  the  cave  dwelling 
— a  simple  matter  of  fact  which  certain  reactionary 
tendencies  in  political  philosophy  and  a  very  per- 
nicious terminology  have  done  a  good  deal  to 
obscure. 

As  an  Englishman,  for  instance,  I  have  to  make  a 
definite  effort  properly  to  realize  that  our  com- 
merce and  political  institutions,  the  sanctity  of  the 
English  home,  and  all  the  other  things  upon  which 
we  pride  ourselves,  are  the  result  of  anything  but 
the  unaided  efforts  of  a  long  line  of  Englishmen. 
One  has  to  stop  and  uproot  impressions  that  are  al- 
most instinctive,  to  remember  that  but  for  the  trick 
of  growing  grains  and  plants  for  food,  which  our 
distant  and  common  forefathers  learnt  of  Asia,  the 
chief  British  industry  might  still  be  the  manu- 
facture of  flint  hatchets;  that  we  sail  the  ships  of 
our  world-wide  commerce  by  the  virtue  of  know- 
ledge which  we  owe  to  the  astronomical  researches 
of  Egyptians  and  Chaldeans,  who  inspired  the 


34  Arms  and  Industry 

astronomers  of  Greece,  who  inspired  those  of  the 
Renaissance  in  Italy,  Spain,  and  Germany,  keeping 
alive  and  developing  not  merely  the  art  of  measur- 
ing space  and  time  but  also  that  conception  of 
order  in  external  nature  without  which  the  growth 
of  organized  knowledge,  which  we  call  science 
enabUng  men  to  carry  on  their  exploitation  of  the 
world,  would  have  been  impossible;  that  our  very 
alphabet  comes  from  Rome,  who  owed  it  to  others ; 
that  the  mathematical  foiindation  of  our  modem 
mechanical  science — without  which  neither  New- 
ton, nor  Watts,  nor  Stevenson,  nor  Faraday  could 
have  been — is  the  work  of  Arabs,*  strengthened 
by  Greeks,  protected  and  enlarged  by  Italians; 
that  our  conceptions  of  political  organization 
which  have  so  largely  shaped  our  poHtical  science 
come  mainly  from  the  Scandinavian  colonists  of  a 
French  province;  that  English  intellect  has  been 
nurtured  mainly  by  Greek  philosophy;  that 
English  law  is  principally  Roman,  and  EngHsh 
reHgion  entirely  Asiatic  in  its  origins;  that  for  the 
thing  which  we  deem  to  be  the  most  important 
concerning  us,  our  spiritual  and  religious  aspira- 
tions, we  go  to  a  Jewish  book  interpreted  by  a 
Church  Roman  in  origin,  reformed  mainly  by  the 
efforts  of  Swiss  and  German  theologians;  that  the 
Royal  Family,  which  is  the  symbol  of  intensely 

*  So  widespread  was  Arab  influence  at  one  period  in  Europe 
that  the  English  King  Offa  had  his  coinage  stamped  with  Arabic 
inscriptions,  as  Arabic  measures  of  money  were  those  chiefly 
used  by  merchants  throughout  Europe  at  that  time. 


The  Case  for  Revision  of  Ideas     35 

English  nationalism,  has  for  nearly  two  hundred 
years  spoken  German  more  readily  than  English. 

But  then,  of  course,  we  are  a  particularly  insular 
people,  afraid  to  construct  the  Channel  Tunnel  for 
fear  that  our  insularity  should  be  diminished  and 
that  we  should  suffer  from  foreign  contamination. 

Do  you  not  see  that  this  notion  that  our  intellect- 
ual activity  can  have  no  influence  upon  foreigners 
is  an  intellectual  abdication  simply  inexplicable 
coming  from  the  mouths  of  patriots,  from  those 
who  profess  to  glory  in  the  big  role  that  their 
country  plays  in  the  affairs  of  the  world?  If  we 
are  completely  right,  and  the  foreigners  completely 
wrong;  if  we  have  such  natural  wisdom  in  the 
matter  that  our  vision,  clear  and  pellucid,  pierces 
these  old  illusions  that  have  so  long  deceived  and 
entrapped  humanity — then  it  is  high  time  we 
imparted  some  of  this  wisdom  to  the  benighted 
foreigner,  and  taught  him  something  of  the  se- 
cret by  which  we  have  grasped  the  truth  while  he 
is  still  simk  in  ignorance.  We  have  no  right,  as 
we  have  certainly  no  interest,  to  keep  it  to  our- 
selves. 

For  these  burdens  of  ours,  if  this  view  is  right, 
are  the  result  of  their  ignorance. 

As  a  matter  of  simple  fact,  of  course,  in  the 
domain  of  ideas  that  matter,  there  are  no  political 
frontiers.  The  ideas  which  make  European  civil- 
ization are  common  to  the  whole,  and  all  those 
factors  of  improved  communication  which  have 
intensified    our    material    interdependence    have 


36  Arms  and  Industry 

to  a  still  greater  degree  intensified  our  moral  and 
intellectual  interdependence. 

To  certain  phases  of  this  problem  eminent 
Germans  are  happily  already  beginning  to  turn 
their  attention.  Men  like  Bernard  Harms  of 
Kiel  have  approached  the  subject  from  a  point 
of  view  similar  to  mine ;  while  in  the  sciences  from 
which  this  new  science  must  so  largely  draw — 
economics,  law,  and  social  organization — Germany 
in  some  respects  leads  the  world.  One  has  only  to 
mention  the  names  of  Lujo  Brentano,  Karl  von  Bar, 
Wilhelm  Ostwald,  Hans  Wehberg,  Piloty,  Schuck- 
ing,  to  realize  that  Germany  has  in  these  and  other 
intellectual  leaders  the  wherewithal  to  make 
a  preponderant  contribution  to  this  Political 
Reformation  of  Europe,  especially,  if  I  may  be 
allowed  to  say  so,  on  the  side  of  systematization 
and  organization,  in  which  the  genius  of  modern 
Germany  excels. 

I  have  uttered  the  phrase  "Political  Reforma- 
tion." Former  generations  of  Europeans  fought 
far  more  bitterly  over  religious  differences  than  we 
are  likely  to  fight  again  over  political  differences. 
These  wars  were  stopped  not  by  what  I  may  term 
"mechanical  means,"  by  conventions,  treaties, 
the  imposition  of  the  preponderant  power  of  any 
one  group,  but  simply  by  the  rationalization  of 
general  opinion,  which  in  its  turn  was  the  result 
of  the  intellectual  ferment  created  by  isolated 
thinkers  and  writers  of  Germany,  Italy,  Switzer- 
land, France,  and   Scotland.      If   these  isolated 


The  Case  for  Revision  of  Ideas     37 

thinkers  and  writers  had  not  fought  for  their 
opinions,  that  development  of  the  European  mind 
which  put  a  stop  to  the  religious  wars  would  not 
have  taken  place,  and  we  should  be  waging  wars 
of  religion  yet.  The  factors  which  operated  to 
bring  to  an  end  the  conflicts  of  the  religious  groups 
are  the  factors  which  will  operate  most  usefully 
to  bring  to  an  end  the  conflicts  of  the  political 
groups.  We  know  the  part  that  German  thought 
and  the  efforts  of  a  few  Germans  played  in  the 
earlier  Reformation.  May  we  not  hope  that 
German  thought,  and  the  efforts  of  a  few  individual 
Germans,  may  play  a  corresponding  part  in  that 
latter  Reformation  which  I  believe  is  the  work  of 
our  generation? 


II 


MORAL  AND  MATERIAL  FACTORS  IN  INTERNATIONAL 
POLITICS 

(Addresses  delivered  before  the  British  Association,  Dundee, 
September  5,  1912,  and  the  South  Place  Institute,  (Conway 
Memorial  Lecture),  March  18,  191 3.) 

A  DISTINGUISHED  American  Ambassador,  who  is 
at  the  same  time  a  political  writer  of  great  force 
and  originality,*  tells  us: 

"The  assumption  which  lies  at  the  foundation  of 
classic  diplomacy  is  that  every  State  is  seeking  to 
appropriate  for  itself  everything  in  the  world  that 
possesses  value,  and  is  restrained  from  actually  doing 
so  only  by  the  resistance  it  may  encounter." 

In  confirmation  of  that  view  he  quotes,  among 
others,  that  great  pedagogue  of  diplomacy,  the 
Comte  de  Gartden,  who  has  outlined  the  fimda- 
mental  principles  of  statecraft  for  us  thus: 

"Every  State  in  its  external  relations  has,  and  can 
have,  no  other  maxims  than  these:  Whoever,  by  the 

*  Dr.  David  Jayne  Hill,  who  was  American  Ambassador  to 
Germany. 

3« 


Moral  and  Material  Factors        39 

superiority  of  his  forces  and  by  his  geographic  position, 
can  do  us  harm  is  our  natural  enemy.  Whoever  cannot 
do  us  harm,  but  can,  by  the  extent  of  his  forces  and  by 
the  position  he  occupies,  do  injury  to  our  enemy,  is 
our  natural  friend. " 

"These  propositions,"  says  Ancellon,  "are 
pivots  upon  which  all  international  intercourse 
turns."  "Fear  and  distrust" — "indestructible 
passions,"  as  De  Gartden  calls  them — "prolong 
the  state  of  open  or  latent  war  in  which  the  Pow- 
ers of  Europe  live."  "The  measure  of  national 
strength  is  the  only  measure  of  national  safety." 

Such  are  the  principles  on  which  the  system  of 
war  statecraft  reposes — for  they  have,  as  De 
Gartden  shows,  the  support  of  all  the  great  classic 
authorities;  they  are  the  commonplaces  of  the 
discussion  of  la  haute  politique,  and  you  know,  of 
course,  the  superior  contempt  with  which  any 
protest  against  them  on  moral  grounds  has  always 
been  met:  those  who  made  it  were  treated  as 
amiable  sentimentalists  living  apart  and  detached 
from  that  world  of  hard  fact  where  men  of  ordinary 
passions  lived  and  moved. 

It  is  rather  astonishing,  therefore,  that  when 
some  of  us,  analyzing  the  grounds  of  this  cannibal- 
istic political  philosophy,  declared  it  to  be  mis- 
taken and  erroneous  from  the  point  of  view  of 
those  motives  of  interest  on  which  its  defenders 
declare  it  to  be  based,  we  should  be  told  that 
our   view   is   too   sordid   for   serious   discussion! 


40  Arms  and  Industry 

Thus  Admiral  Mahan  says  that  all  my  work  is 
vitiated  because  I  assume  self-interest  on  the  part 
of  nations  in  their  politics.     He  says: 

"  To  regard  the  world  as  governed  by  self-interest 
is  to  live  in  a  non-existent  world,  an  ideal  world,  a 
world  possessed  by  an  idea  much  less  worthy  than 
those  which  mankind,  to  do  it  bare  justice,  persistently 
entertains."  * 

I  am  more  concerned  for  the  moment,  however, 
with  the  criticism  of  those  who  have  never  sup- 
ported the  principles  which  underlay  the  old 
diplomacy   and   statecraft. 

Dr.  Evans  Darby,  a  veteran  of  the  Peace  Move- 
ment, to  whom  I  tender  my  sincerest  homage,  dis- 
cussing at  a  recent  Peace  Conference  a  Quarterly 
Review  article  on  "The  New  Pacifism,"  protested 
in  these  terms:  "The  common  man  does  not  at 
any  time  confound  morality  with  material  advan- 
tage. He  knows  well — no  one  better — that  they 
are  not  always  identical,  but  very  often  confiict- 
mg. 

A  Professor  of  a  great  English  University  says 
that  war  will  go  on  because  men  are  animated  by 
ideas  for  which  they  are  prepared  to  die;  and  so 
long  as  they  are  thus  prepared  to  give  their  lives 
for  an  ideal,  possibly  quite  divorced  from  any 

*jThis  is  in  criticism  of  some  of  my  own  work.  Yet  Admiral 
Mahan,  a  year  or  two  previously,  had  said:  "It  is  vain  to  expect 
nations  to  act  from  any  other  motives  than  those  of  interest. " 
("  The  Interest  of  America  in  International  Conditions,  "  London. 
Sampson  Low.) 


Moral  and  Material  Factors        41 

material  interest  whatsoever,  the  military  contest 
of  States  will  continue.  Another  very  hostile 
critic  says  it  is  absurd  to  suppose  that  nations 
fight  about  "money,"  and  that  it  would  be  a  very 
sad  and  sordid  fact  if  they  did. 

And  an  English  Liberal,  writing  only  last  week 
in  a  morning  newspaper,  says : 

"I  believe  that  those  Pacifists  who  are  relying  upon 
economic  arguments,  and  who  are  putting  into  the 
background  the  much  greater  moral  and  ethical  con- 
siderations, are  doing  their  case  a  great  disservice. " 

Now,  I  suggest  that  both  these  ideas — the  im- 
plication that  it  is  sordid  for  a  community  to  be 
guided  by  self-interest,  and  that  general  well- 
being  is  distinct  from,  and  even  at  times  in  conflict 
with,  morality — are  due  to  confusion  of  thought, 
and  to  the  defects  and  limitations  of  the  terms 
employed. 

"Economics,"  of  course,  connotes,  not  the 
interests  of  some  persons  or  a  class  in  the  com- 
munity, but  the  interests  of  the  whole  of  the 
community,  and  connotes  also,  not  merely 
money  and  the  coupons  of  bonds,  but  the  methods 
by  which  men  earn  their  bread,  and  the  conditions 
in  which  they  live.  This  is  not  a  view  special  to 
myself,  or  to  any  particular  school  of  economics. 
Professor  Marshall,  for  instance,  in  a  textbook 
now  nearly  fifteen  years  old,  says: 

"  Economics  is  on  the  one  side  a  study  of  wealth,  and 


42  Arms  and  Industry 

on  the  other  and  more  important  side  a  part  of  the 
study  of  man.  For  man's  character  has  beer,  moulded 
by  his  everyday  work,  and  by  the  material  resources 
which  he  thereby  procures,  more  than  by  any  other 
influence,  unless  it  be  that  of  his  religious  ideals;  and 
the  great  forming  agencies  of  the  world's  history  have 
been  the  religious  and  the  economic.  .  .  .  And  very 
often  the  influence  exerted  on  a  person's  character  by 
the  amount  of  his  income  is  hardly  less,  if  it  is  less, 
than  that  exerted  by  the  way  in  which  it  is  earned. 
It  makes  little  difference  to  the  fulness  of  life  of  a 
family  whether  its  yearly  income  is  £1000  or  £5000. 
But  it  makes  a  very  great  difference  whether  the 
income  is  £30  or  £150;  for  with  £150  the  family  has, 
with  £30  it  has  not,  the  material  conditions  of  a  com- 
plete life.  It  is  true  that  in  religion,  in  the  family 
affections,  and  in  friendship,  even  the  poor  may  find 
scope  for  many  of  those  faculties  which  are  the  source 
of  the  highest  happiness ;  but  the  conditions  whichisur- 
round  extreme  poverty,  especially  in  densely-crowded 
places,  tend  to  deaden  the  higher  faculties.  Those 
who  have  been  called  the  residuum  of  our  large  towns 
have  little  opportunity  for  friendship;  they  know  no- 
thing of  the  decencies  and  the  quiet,  and  very  little  of 
the  unity,  of  family  life;  and  religion  often  fails  to 
reach  them.  .  .  .  The  study  of  the  causes  of  pov- 
erty is  the  study  of  the  causes  of  the  degradation  of 
a  large  part  of  mankind."* 

For,  of  course,  the  economic  interests  of  a  people 
mean,  not  merely  food  and  clothing  and  habitable 

*"The   Economics   of  Industry,"   pp.   2-3,   fourth    edition, 
Macmillan  &  Co. 


Moral  and  Material  Factors        43 

houses,  the  means  of  decency  and  cleanliness  and 
good  health,  but  books,  education,  and  some  lei- 
sure, freedom  from  care  and  the  cramping  terror 
of  destitution,  from  the  effects  of  the  deadly  mi- 
asma of  the  slum.  The  material  thing  is  but  the 
expression  of  still  prof  ounder  realities  which  cannot 
be  separated  therefrom,  because  with  leisure  and  a 
wider  outlook  come  a  finer  affection — the  laughter 
of  children,  the  grace  of  women,  some  assurance 
that  maternity  shall  be  a  joy  instead  of  a  burden — 
the  keener  feeling  for  life.  Bread  is  not  merely 
the  pulverised  seed  of  a  plant,  it  is  the  bloom  on 
a  child's  cheek,  it  is  life;  for  it  is  human  food — 
that  is  to  say,  a  part  of  what  human  life  represents. 
And  to  save  for  mothers  their  children,  and  for 
men  their  wives;  to  prolong  human  life,  to  enlarge 
and  dignify  it,  are  aims  not  to  be  dismissed  as 
an  "  appeal  to  the  pocket."  And  yet  they  are  so 
dismissed. 

So  much  for  the  first  point — the  sordidness  of 
the  economic  consideration.  What  of  the  second 
— Dr.  Evans  Darby's — that  it  is  not  sufficient  to 
establish  the  general  interest,  because  morality 
may  be  in  conflict  therewith? 

How  do  you  formulate  morality?  Surely  as 
the  observance  of  that  code  which  best  makes  for 
the  general  interest.  If  you  take  the  ground  that 
it  is  not  this,  but  a  divine  injunction  which  society 
must  obey  even  though  it  destroy  society,  some- 
thing dissociated  from  human  ends  altogether,  I 
would  ask  a  question  or  two.     How  do  you  account 


44  Arms  and  Industry 

for  pagan  morality?  Is  it  the  divine  intention  to 
improve  or  worsen  society?  I  think  we  can  only 
answer  that  the  pagan  code  of  morals,  so  far  as 
it  was  a  sound  one,  was  the  recognition,  often 
subconscious,  of  what  made  for  the  general  well- 
being  and  that  a  divinity  which  should  desire  to 
make  society  worse  is  inconceivable. 

No.  As  a  matter  of  simple  fact,  we  apply  this 
test  to  all  our  codes — ^it  is  the  final  appeal :  Is  it  for 
the  well-being,  the  good,  of  mankind?  If  it  is,  it 
is  moral.     If  it  is  not,  it  is  immoral. 

You  may  say:  You  must  define  "good"  and 
"well-being."  I  have  defined  them.  There  are 
certain  ultimate  realities  which  spring  to  one's 
mind  immediately — affection,  love,  family  life, 
motherhood,  fatherhood,  the  happiness  of  children ; 
rest  after  fatigue;  achievement  after  effort — you 
can  prolong  the  list  indefinitely.  And  these  things 
are  bound  up  with  and  depend  upon  more  material 
things — health,  which  means  food  and  clothing 
and  cleanliness;  leisure  and  serenity,  which  mean 
an  ordered  life,  efficiency,  the  capacity  to  live  in 
society  and  to  do  one's  work  in  the  world — and 
you  come  back  to  economics,  to  sociology,  to  the 
science  of  human  society.  They  are  all  inter- 
dependent parts  of  one  great  whole,  and  you  can- 
not separate  them. 

So  I  come  back  to  my  definition,  that  morality 
is  the  foundation  of  the  general  interest.  The 
connotation  of  self-sacrifice  implied  often,  too 
often,  I  think,  in  morality  and  idealism,  arises 


Moral  and  Material  Factors         45 

from  the  fact  that,  in  the  general  interest,  the 
individual  may  be  called  upon  to  make  an  apparent 
sacrifice  of  his  personal  material  interest.  But 
you  cannot,  as  I  have  already  shown,  have  such  a 
thing  as  the  sacrifice  of  the  general  interest  for 
the  sake  of  the  general  interest.  You  come  to  an 
absurdity;  so  that,  if  it  be  true  that  morality  is  a 
statement  of  the  general  interest,  the  interest  of 
the  commlmity,  it  follows  that  interest  and  moral- 
ity, when  we  are  talking  of  communities,  must 
coincide.  This,  I  submit,  is  Euclidian  in  its 
simplicity. 

But,  you  may  say,  the  whole  question  is  the 
interest  of  one  community  as  against  another; 
that  just  as  an  individual  in  the  nation  may  have 
to  refrain  from  a  material  advantage  to  himself 
because  it  would  be  at  the  cost  of  the  general 
interest,  so  an  individual  nation,  one  of  the  com- 
munity of  nations,  might  profit  by  its  force  to 
advantage  itself  at  the  cost  of  others,  and  would 
thus  be  acting  immorally,  though  to  its  interest. 

Now,  it  is  an  integral  part  of  the  economic  case 
against  war  that  the  nation  is  not  the  community 
in  the  economic  sense  if  there  exist  international 
economic  relations  at  all;  that  it  is  integrally  a  part 
of  the  whole  community  of  organised  society;  that 
to  smite  the  interest  of  the  whole  is  to  smite  it- 
self ;  that,  economically,  we  are  part  of  the  general 
community  to  the  extent  of  the  nation's  economic 
relation  with  other  nations ;  and  if  there  be  no  eco- 
nomic relation,  actual  or  prospective,  there  can  be 


46  Arms  and  Industry 

no  economic  interest,  moral  or  immoral,  involved. 
The  shrewdest  of  those  who  defend  war  do  so,  not 
merely  on  the  ground  that  it  is  to  the  interest  of  the 
victorious  nation,  but  on  the  ground,  also,  that  it  is 
to  the  interest  of  all  nations,  to  mankind  in  general, 
by  giving  the  management  of  the  world  to  the  best 
and  ablest  elements,  and  so  forth.  And,  of  course, 
these  defenders  of  war  feel  they  have  a  moral 
justification  for  their  faith,  just  as  the  Pacifists 
feel  that  they  have  for  theirs  because  they  have 
before  them  the  ultimate  well-being  of  humanity. 
Thus  I  have  taken  the  ground  that,  if  we  are  to 
know  which  is  right,  which  is  moral,  we  shall  have 
to  determine  which  really  promotes  the  interest 
of  mankind.  My  critics  reply  it  is  not  a  question 
of  which  promotes  the  interests,  but  of  which  is 
right.  And  I  say,  how  are  you  to  test  which  is 
right  if  you  disregard  the  interests  of  mankind? 
"Right"  then  becomes  a  question  of  revelation  or 
intuition. 

We  are  told  by  the  older  Pacifists  that  "inter- 
est" is  not  the  test;  that,  though  war  did  "pay," 
it  could  still  be  immoral. 

Well,  let  us  see  where  that  leads  us.  We  will 
assume  that  the  defenders  of  war  who  say  that  it  is 
to  the  general  interest,  that  it  "pays, "  have  judged 
correctly.  Then,  according  to  the  older  Pacifists, 
mankind  would  be  materially  the  better  for  war, 
morally  worse — a  quite  possible  conclusion,  accord- 
ing to  Dr.  Darby,  since  the  interest  and  morality  of 
mankind  are  so  often  in  conflict.     That  means  that 


Moral  and  Material  Factors        47 

every  time  we  fail  to  go  to  war  we  have  lost  an 
opportunity  of  attenuating  poverty,  of  diminish- 
ing the  mass  of  himger,  pain,  and  sickness,  among 
us.  The  more  moral  you  are  as  a  community  in 
this  respect,  the  worse  will  your  slums  become,  the 
more  will  your  teeming  population  die  of  consump- 
tion, the  more  will  your  women  be  driven  by  pov- 
erty to  white  slavery,  in  greater  holocausts  will 
your  children  die.  Peace,  in  terms  of  human 
suffering,  will  be  infinitely  more  cruel  than  war 
itself.  In  short,  since  morality  means,  appar- 
ently, the  opposite  of  self-interest — that  is  to  say, 
the  sacrifice  of  self — the  commimity  has  only  to 
become  entirely  moral  to  perish  utterly. 

Fortunately,  there  is  no  such  monstrous  di- 
lemma, and  this  criticism  of  Admiral  Mahan,  that  a 
community  has  higher  interests  than  self -interest, 
and  of  Dr.  Darby,  that  action  which  serves  self- 
interest  will  not  serve  morality,  arises  from  the 
old  and  infinitely  mischievous  notion  that  self- 
interest  and  morality  are  at  variance,  that  high 
ideals  must  necessarily  be  in  conflict  with  material 
advantage,  that  the  higher  welfare  of  the  race 
is  in  some  wonderful  way  founded  upon  a  sacri- 
fice of  its  material  welfare. 

I  do  not  believe  that.  I  believe  that  morality 
is  not  some  abstraction  to  which  the  conduct  of 
men,  to  their  hurt,  must  conform,  some  cruel  Kali 
goddess  demanding  its  human  sacrifice,  the  sacri- 
fice of  the  great  mass  of  mankind,  the  lives  of 
children,  the  tears  of  women,  the  health  and  minds 


48  Arms  and  Industry 

of  men,  but  is,  on  the  contrary,  the  codification  of 
the  general  interest;  that  conduct  on  the  part 
of  the  whole  which  will  best  serve  the  interests  of 
the  whole,  best  make  for  the  well-being  of  society 
— that  is  to  say,  the  self-interest  of  society. 

Surely  it  is  the  mark  of  moral  progress  that  the 
identity  between  interest  and  morality  becomes 
clearer,  that  as  man  advances  in  the  understanding 
of  human  relationship  his  intelligence  bridges  this 
gulf  which  is  supposed  to  separate  self-interest 
from  the  ideal  motive. 

In  some  story  of  Indian  life  occurs  an  incident 
which  has  always  stuck  in  my  memory.  An 
Indian  saint,  living  on  his  handful  of  rice  and  fish, 
has  drawn  around  him  on  the  sand  a  circle  which 
no  one  of  lower  caste  may  pass  if  defilement  is  to 
be  escaped.  An  English  officer  crossing  the  com- 
pound allows  his  shadow  to  fall  within  the  circle. 
The  Indian  saint,  faithfiil  to  his  creed,  walks  to 
the  river-bank,  throws  into  it  the  handful  of  rice 
and  the  fish  which  are  his  day's  food,  and  goes  unfed 
until  the  next  day,  in  order  that  he  shall  not  touch 
a  morsel  of  what  has  been  defiled  by  the  shadow  of 
the  unclean. 

One  respects  this.  It  is  a  real  sacrifice  for  a 
principle — an  unquestioned  sacrifice  simply  made. 
At  first  thought  one  would  say  that  a  system  of 
morals  which  had  brought  out  this  capacity  for 
sacrifice  during  untold  generations  among  unnum- 
bered millions  of  men  must  be  a  marvellous  vehi- 
cle of  human  improvement.      And  yet  the  outcome 


Moral  and  Material  Factors         49 

of  it  is  the  Indian  civilization  we  found  a  century 
or  so  ago,  and,  indeed,  find  to-day. 

In  another  story  of  Indian  Hfe — Mrs.  Steele's 
Hosts  of  the  Lord — I  find  expressed  the  very  thought 
here  suggested : 

"The  rocks  themselves  had  been  worn  through  by 
the  feet  of  millions  who  had  toiled  that  painful  moun- 
tain way  to  reach  the  cradle  of  the  gods.  And  follow- 
ing as  far  as  she  could  follow  in  the  near  hills  and  the 
climbing  track,  worn  by  the  weariness  of  that  eternal 
search  after  righteousness,  she  asked  herself  what  it 
was  that  kept  mankind  so  long  upon  the  road.  Gen- 
eration after  generation  of  Eastern  pilgrims  had  worn 
that  path  out  of  the  sheer  rock,  had  agonized  after 
good — and  had  remained  evil.  A  little  shudder  of 
memory  ran  through  her  at  the  thought — how  evil! 
And  now  the  West,  with  its  white  tents,  its  white  face, 
its  hard  way,  and  its  unbelieving  mind,  had  come 
to  show  a  newer  and  a  better  way." 

It  will  have  struck  you,  of  course,  that  the  de- 
velopment of  religion  reveals  this  curious  fact: 
the  early  forms  are  all  profoundly  permeated  by 
the  spirit  of  self-sacrifice,  and  by  forms  of  self- 
sacrifice  divorced  from  any  aim  connected  with 
the  advancement  of  material  well-being.  The 
pagan  forms  are  represented  by  actual  physical 
suffering  such  as  throwing  oneself  under  the  wheels 
of  a  chariot,  or  living  upon  a  bed  of  spikes,  or 
allowing  the  nails  of  the  fingers  to  grow  through 
the  clasped  hand.  And  even  in  the  early  forms 
4 


50  Arms  and  Industry 

of  the  Christian  religion  we  find  the  saint  acquir- 
ing merit  by  living  at  the  top  of  a  pillar  or  in  the 
desert.  But  progress  in  religion  is  marked  by  the 
abandonment  of  that  form  of  idealism.  Catholi- 
cism has  indeed  preserved,  the  monastery  and  the 
nunnery,  but  most  of  those  institutions  now  justify 
their  existence  by  some  real  social  work.  And  more 
and  more  do  we  apply — and  by  "we"  I  include 
those  who  subscribe  to  the  dogma — this  test  to  all 
religious  effort  and  organization:  how  far  does  it 
make  the  world  a  better  place  to  live  in?  I  hap- 
pened recently  in  Paris  to  be  present  at  an  informal 
discussion  between  some  French  priests  touching 
the  question  of  divorce,  and  the  most  suggestive 
thing  about  the  whole,  I  thought,  was  their  tend- 
ency to  justify  this  or  that  line  taken  by  the  Church 
by  one  test:  that  it  made  or  it  did  not  make  for 
the  disintegration  of  society.  And  wherever  the 
dogmatic  sanction  was  introduced,  I  believe  it  was 
introduced  as  an  afterthought.  And  on  another 
occasion  a  man  of  religious  instincts  resented 
what  he  regarded  as  a  slighting  reference  of  mine 
to  St.  Simon  Stylites.  He  thought  to  reprove  me 
by  pointing  out  that  these  lives  of  austerity  were 
a  protest  against  a  condition  of  society  which 
amounted  to  social  putrefaction.  In  other  words, 
he  justified  them  by  attempting  to  show  that 
they  had  a  social  end;  that  they  made  for  the 
betterment  of  mankind  in  the  widest  terms.  This 
line  of  argument  pursued  by  such  a  person  indi- 
cates that  the  Western  man  is  simply  incapable  of 


Moral  and  Material  Factors        51 

any  other  conception.  In  the  long  run  the  final 
sanction  of  the  religious  ideal  is  the  well-being 
of  society.  More  and  more  is  the  Christian  con- 
ception drifting  towards  this:  Christ  came  to  save 
this  world. 

You  see,  of  course,  the  analogy  which  I  want  to 
draw  between  religion  and  political  ideals.  Like 
the  religious,  the  earlier  forms  of  political  ideals, 
were  divorced  from  any  end  of  material  well- 
being;  they  are  represented  by  the  personal  loy- 
alty of  followers  to  a  chief  or  king.  You  get  a 
hierarchy  of  loyalty :  the  loyalty  of  the  serfs  to 
their  lord,  their  lord  to  his  king.  Think  of  all 
the  gallant  effort,  the  leading  of  forlorn  hopes,  the 
adherence  to  lost  causes,  that  this  personal 
loyalty  has  inspired.  It  is  not  a  mean  spectacle ;  it 
is  a  very  grand  spectacle.  And  yet  the  day  of 
that  kind  of  political  idealism  has  passed.  And 
it  has  passed  because  no  chief  who  would  perman- 
ently accept  the  sacrifice  of  his  subjects  or  his 
followers  for  his  mere  personal  advantage  or  ag- 
grandizement was  worth  the  sacrifice.  Only  did 
he  become  worth  it  when  he  in  his  person  repre- 
sented some  principle  or  idea  embodying  the  gen- 
eral welfare  of  his  followers,  the  advantage  of 
the  community.  So  that,  in  fighting  for  their 
king  they  were  fighting  for  themselves.  But  this 
roundabout  way  of  attaining  an  object  lends  itself 
to  distortion,  and  it  becomes  simpler,  and  finally 
necessary,  to  have  political  ideals  to  be  centred  on 
the  good  of  the  community — that  is  to  say,  upon 


52  Arms  and  Industry 

ourselves,  upon  our  interests.  Self-sacrifice  by  the 
community  for  the  good  of  the  community  is  a 
contradiction  in  terms.  If  we  say  that  the  action 
taken  by  a  group  has  in  view  the  interest  of  that 
group,  the  object  is  self-interest. 

It  is  an  old  story,  of  course,  for  all  of  you,  that 
complete  and  universal  altruism  is  self-stultify- 
ing. If  everyone  in  a  community  sacrifices  himself 
for  the  community  he  sacrifices  the  commimity ;  he 
has  defeated  his  own  object.  But  apart  from  that, 
one  must  realise  that  the  modem  world  has  lost 
its  impulse  to  sterile  self-sacrifice ;  it  can  no  longer 
believe  in  a  God  that  demands  it,  any  more 
than  a  great  democracy  could  forsake  the  pur- 
suit of  those  objects  which  help  to  secure  the 
happiness  and  well-being  of  millions  in  order  to 
devote  its  energies  to  the  dynastic  rivalries  of  royal 
houses.  Such  an  object,  though  less  selfish,  would 
certainly  not  be  more  worthy  or  more  inspiring. 

Well,  now,  I  think  you  will  see  the  application 
of  the  illustration  which  I  gave  at  the  beginning  of 
this  paper.  Ideas  do  not  become  less  ideal  because 
they  have  become  more  closely  associated  with  ma- 
terial welfare.  There  is  a  fatal  mental  confusion 
in  the  whole  thing.  And  you  may  perhaps  guess 
my  reason  for  raising  the  issue. 

In  attempting  to  show  that  nations  in  the  very 
essence  of  the  case  cannot  profit  by  war,  I  am  met 
by  the  retort  that  men  fight  not  mainly  about 
interest  at  all.  No  later  than  last  week  the 
professor  of  a  great  English  university  said  that 


Moral  and  Material  Factors        53 

war  woiild  go  on  because  men  were  animated  by 
ideas  for  which  they  are  prepared  to  die;  and  so 
long  as  they  are  thus  prepared  to  give  their  lives  for 
an  ideal  possibly  quite  divorced  from  any  material 
interest  whatsoever,  the  military  contests  of  States 
will  continue.  Another  very  hostile  critic  says  that 
it  is  absurd  to  suppose  that  nations  fight  about 
"money,"  and  that  it  would  be  a  very  sad  and 
sordid  fact  if  they  did.  Admiral  Mahan  says  that 
all  my  work  is  vitiated  because  I  assume  self- 
interest  on  the  part  of  nations  in  their  politics. 
He  says:  "To  regard  the  world  as  governed  by 
self-interest  is  to  live  in  a  non-existent  world,  a 
world  possessed  by  an  idea  much  less  worthy  than 
those  which  mankind,  to  do  it  bare  justice, 
persistently  entertains." 

When  this  criticism  comes,  by  the  way,  from  a 
supporter  of  what  one  may  term  the  orthodox 
or  classic  statecraft,  one  is  a  little  mystified. 
What  were  the  older  accepted  interpretations  of 
human  motives  in  the  field  of  international  action? 

Ideals  do  not  become  less  ideal  because  they  be- 
come more  closely  associated  with  material  welfare. 

The  Christian  saint  who  would  allow  the  nails  of 
his  fingers  to  grow  through  the  palm  of  his  clasped 
hand  would  excite,  not  our  admiration,  but  our 
revolt.  More  and  more  is  religious  effort  being 
subjected  to  this  test :  does  it  make  for  the  improve- 
ment of  society?  If  not,  it  stands  condemned. 
Political  ideals  will  inevitably  follow  a  like  develop- 
ment, and  will  be  more  and  more  subjected  to  a 


54  Arms  and  Industry- 

like  test.  Lecky  has  summarised  the  tendency 
thus:  "Interest  as  distinguished  from  passion 
[and  if  we  read  for  "passion"  "unreasoned  emo- 
tion," the  generalization  confirms  my  point]  gains 
a  greater  empire  with  advancing  civilization." 

Progress  of  this  kind  here  is  not  marked  by  a  bet- 
terment of  ideal — a  betterment  of  intention.  I  have 
said  elsewhere  that  there  was  probably  as  much 
good  intention,  as  much  readiness  for  self-sacrifice, 
in  the  Europe  of  Simon  Stylites  as  in  the  Europe 
of  our  day;  there  is  perhaps  as  much  to-day  in 
Hindustan  or  Arabia  as  in  England.  But  what 
differentiates  the  twentieth  from  the  fifth  century, 
or  Arabic  from  British  civilisation,  is  a  difference 
of  ideas  due  to  hard  mental  work ;  the  prime,  if  not 
the  sole,  factor  of  advance  is  hard  thinking. 

That  brings  us  to  what  I  believe  to  be  the  real 
distinction,  if  any,  between  the  older  and  the  newer 
Pacifism, — namely,  that  the  older  Pacifists  ap- 
pealed to  an  intuitive  unanalyzed  ideal,  which 
they  did  not  justify  by  a  process  of  reasoning, 
while  the  New  Pacifists  attempt  to  obtain  their 
result  by  analysis,  by  showing  the  how  and  why  of 
certain  facts  in  human  relations,  instead  of  merely 
holding  up  an  ideal  without  the  process  of  rational- 
istic justification. 

There  are,  indeed,  favoured  persons — those, 
with  a  genius  for  jumping  to  the  right  conception 
— to  whom  an  ideal  even  unexplained  and  unjus- 
tified by  any  rational  process  may  immediately 
appeal.      But  I  do  not  believe  that  the  average 


Moral  and  Material  Factors        55 

man  possesses  this  special  genius,  and  I  maintain 
that  to  him,  as  also  to  the  man  already  animated 
by  another  ideal,  you  can  only  appeal  by  a  pro- 
cess of  reasoning.  Existing  beliefs  can  be  under- 
mined only  by  such  a  process.  Thus,  even  if 
finally  you  replace  one  unreasoned  ideal  by  an- 
other, the  process  of  transition  at  least  will  be 
one  of  ratiocination.  My  object  is  to  criticize 
a  very  general  assumption  increasingly  favoured 
in  our  day:  That  reason — "logic,"  as  the  para- 
graphist  would  say — does  not  affect  the  conduct 
of  men ;  that  it  is  hopeless  to  expect  a  problem  like 
that  of  war  and  peace  to  be  affected  by  it. 

I  think  the  implication  is  that  in  the  really 
moving  forces  of  the  world  reason  plays  small  part ; 
that  the  strongest  impulses  to  peace,  as  well  as 
those  to  war,  are  non-rational.  On  the  one  side 
you  have  the  Tolstoyan  fervour;  on  the  other 
side  the  fervour  of  patriotism,  or  the  determina- 
tion to  right  wrong.  There  is  a  feeling  that  the 
impetus  of  an  intuitive,  unreasoned,  moral  im- 
pulse, an  ideal  emanating  from  emotion,  is  greater 
than  that  coming  from  reasoned  conviction. 

This  is  in  part,  perhaps,  due  to  the  feeling  that 
the  extremist,  the  intuitionist,  is  more  sincere,  and 
that  he  gives  us  a  clearer  guide  in  actual  policy, 
because  the  average  man  is  incapable  of  theorizing 
or  of  splitting  hairs;  to  the  feeling  that,  if  you 
admit  war  at  all,  you  run  the  risk  of  admitting  all 
war;  that,  if  you  are  for  peace,  you  must  not  make 
distinctions  between  one  kind  of  war  and  another. 


56  Arms  and  Industry 

It  is  with  this  attitude  that  I  desire  to  join  issue. 
I  believe  it  involves  grave  errors  of  fact,  and  of  psy- 
chology, although  in  so  condemning  it  I  do  not 
necessarily  exclude  intuition  as  part  of  the  process 
of  the  recognition  of  truth. 

It  is  the  service  of  Bergson — among  others — to 
have  shown  that  many  are  able  to  seize  a  truth  by 
intuition ;  that  some  may  have  an  ear  for  truth,  as 
others  for  music ;  that  some  may  see  it  in  a  flash 
of  genius,  without  being  able  to  analyse  it  or 
to  show  us  why  it  is  the  truth,  just  as  there  are 
natural  musicians  able  to  play  difficult  music 
by  ear.  Such  in  the  field  of  moral  truth  are  the 
intuitionists,  the  idealists,  the  founders  of  religions, 
the  great  moralists,  the  Tolstoys.  But  there  are 
others  with  no  ear  or  with  distorted  taste  making 
most  frightful  cacophony.  And  when  one  asks  how 
they  are  to  be  corrected,  these  geniuses  for  moral 
harmonies  stare  in  wonder.  "Why,  there  is  only 
one  way, "  they  say.  ** Go  on  playing;  the  beauty 
of  these  harmonies  they  hear  will  soon  teach  them 
how  to  play.     How  did  we  learn?" 

Yes,  if  we  all  had  the  genius  for  music,  it  would 
be  enough.  But  we  are  not  all  Tolstoys ;  and  "  the 
glow  and  fervour"  will  only  communicate  itself  to 
those  who  have  the  ear,  the  gift,  which  most  have 
not.  To  the  workaday  world  and  for  workaday 
folk  making  their  dreadful  cacophony  you  must  be 
able  to  show  in  detail,  and  by  humdrum  and  tire- 
some analysis,  the  how  and  the  why  of  the  false 
notes  and  the  bad  time.     These  have  lost  their 


Moral  and  Material  Factors        57 

appreciation  of  harmony,  rhythm,  melody,  and  if 
they  are  to  play  in  unison  at  all,  and  be  prevented 
from  making  frightful  discords,  we  must  teach 
them  the  relative  values  of  quavers  and  crotchets 
and  minims.  And  without  this  work  of  analysis, 
these  arguments  and  balances  of  reason,  the  dis- 
cords of  the  great  mass  never  will  be  corrected. 
I  do  not  believe  that  the  man  who  achieves  his 
conviction  as  the  result  of  a  process  of  reasoning 
is  less  sincere,  or  has  necessarily  less  fervour, 
than  the  man  who  holds  his  conviction  by  intui- 
tion— by  the  inner  light.  The  defender  of  an  old 
inherited  conception  is  often  undoubtedly  sincere, 
but  the  reformer  who  has  thought  himself  into  new 
conceptions,  modifying  and  qualifying  the  old, 
has  generally  as  great  a  fervour;  and  a  new  move- 
ment of  ideas  like  those  of  the  Reformation  or 
the  French  Revolution,  which  were  in  their  be- 
ginnings purely  a  matter  of  argument  and  dis- 
cussion, often  abstruse,  in  their  development  may 
inflame  millions  to  a  high  pitch  of  passion  and 
fervour.  While  intuition  undoubtedly  plays  its 
part  in  determining  men's  ideas,  progress  in  ideas, 
the  correction  of  false  ideas,  is  entirely  a  matter 
of  reasoning.  Reason  as  distinct  from  emotion 
is  a  necessary  part  of  the  process  of  understanding 
human  relationships,  and  so  improving  them. 
While  the  glow  and  fervour  which  go  with  the 
possession  of  an  unexamined  and  unanalyzed  ideal 
have  their  necessary  part  in  the  spiritual  life  of 
the  world,  this  mere  intuitive  inspiration  will  not 


58  Arms  and  Industry 

and  cannot  of  itself  make  for  improvement,  or 
suffice  for  a  task  like  the  elimination  of  war.  Ra- 
tional analysis  is  as  necessary  a  part  of  that 
improvement,  as  it  was  of  that  change  in  the  mind 
of  men  which  gave  us  freedom  from  religious  op- 
pression, freedom  which  could  never  have  been 
achieved  imless  men  had  been  ready  to  argue  ab- 
struse points  of  theological  difference.  This  "log- 
ic-chopping" of  the  Reformation,  far  from  having 
no  practical  effect  on  policies  and  on  the  conduct 
of  men,  had,  on  the  contrary,  a  revolutionary 
effect,  and  that  not  merely  upon  their  conduct, 
but  upon  their  psychology;  nor  can  we  dogmati- 
cally fix  any  line  of  demarcation  between  intu- 
ition, or  even  instinct,  and  reason.  You  know 
that,  in  the  fifteenth  century  an  eminent  Cath- 
olic said  this:  "It  would  be  impossible  for  us 
Catholics  to  sit  at  table  with  a  heretic,  because  he 
carries  with  him  a  certain  odour  which  is  per- 
sonally intolerable  to  us."  Now,  you  would 
have  said  that  here  is  something  purely  instinctive 
and  intuitional  on  the  part  of  the  Catholic — 
unconnected  in  any  way  with  reasoning.  Yet 
it  is  curious  that  when  a  few  men  had  written  books 
on  abstruse  points  of  theology,  appealing  purely  to 
reason,  and  when  the  intellectual  ferment  so  cre- 
ated had  done  its  work,  this  special  odour  of  the 
heretic  disappeared.  For  I  think  the  most  marvel- 
lous thing  about  that  great  European  transforma- 
tion of  mind  which  marked  the  difference  between 
the  time  of  the  Massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew  and 


Moral  and  Material  Factors         59 

our  own  is,  not  that  the  CathoHc  should  cease 
massacring  the  Protestant,  and  vice  versa,  but 
that  each  should  cease  desiring  to  do  so. 

Again  the  holding  of  right  ideas  on  essential 
matters  of  human  conduct,  although  the  result  of 
reasoning,  is  not  dependent  upon  great  learning 
or  a  capacity  for  abstruse  argument,  but  upon 
the  capacity  to  see  simple,  visible  facts  as 
they  are,  and  to  reason  simply  from  them;  that 
the  immense  majority  of  us  possess  this  capacity, 
but  have  our  vision  distorted  by  elaborately  con- 
structed spectacles  of  false  theories;  and  the 
real  work  of  the  dialectician  with  his  learning 
and  logic  is  to  remove  those  spectacles  by  de- 
stroying the  false  theories  in  question.  That 
work  of  destruction  done,  the  truth  stands  out 
of  itself  clear  to  ordinary  vision. 

Let  me  take  a  concrete  illustration.  Between 
the  middle  of  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth 
centuries  in  Europe,  about  one  hundred  thousand 
persons  were  condemned  to  death  for  witchcraft — 
condemned  by  very  acute-minded  educated  men, 
trained  lawyers  accustomed  to  sift  evidence. 
Moreover,  many  of  these  men  had  made  a  close 
study  of  the  "science"  of  witchcraft,  and  thor- 
oughly believed  in  it.  There  were,  nevertheless,  a 
few  men  much  earlier  than  this — Montaigne  was 
one — who  saw  that  this  "  science"  was  just  learned 
rubbish;  and  one  of  them,  who  himself  saw  quite 
clearly  the  real  character  of  witchcraft,  expressed 
this  opinion:  "The  bulk  of  mankind  will  always 


6o  Arms  and  Industry- 

believe  in  witchcraft.  When  you  get  highly 
educated  and  exceptional  men  believing  it,  what 
possible  hope  is  there  of  the  average  man,  with 
his  loose  notions  of  evidence  and  probability,  ever 
coming  to  see  its  errors?  Not  one  brain  in  a 
million  is  capable  of  the  learning  and  clearness 
of  view  necessary  to  refute  these  misconceptions. " 

Doubtless,  if  any  one  of  us  here  had  attempted 
to  argue  with  one  of  those  eighteenth-century 
judges,  we  should  have  been  hopelessly  beaten. 
Yet  if  you  put  this  question  to  an  ordinary  school 
boy:  "Do  you  regard  it  as  likely  that  an  old 
woman  could  cause  a  storm  at  sea  and  make  a 
Scotch  King  seasick?"  He  would  reply  immedi- 
ately and  dogmatically:   "No,  it  isn't  likely." 

Why  is  he  thus  able  to  dogmatize?  He  has 
not  studied  the  heavy  tomes  familiar  to  the 
eighteenth-century  judges.  But  he  has  formed 
the  habit  of  judging  natural  phenomena  straight, 
of  seeing  facts  just  simply  as  they  are;  of  draw- 
ing the  simplest  and  easiest  conclusions  from  them 
with  a  mind  untwisted  by  hypotheses,  uninflu- 
enced by  the  theories  of  goblins  and  portents  which 
weighed  upon  the  intelligence  of  the  seventeenth 
century.  Without  the  prepossessions  of  such 
theories,  he  interprets  phenomena  directly  and 
not  through  the  spectacles  which  those  theo- 
ries constituted.  Owing  to  the  turn  given  to  his 
mind  by  the  attitude  of  those  about  him  towards 
external  things,  he  unconsciously  adopts  the  in- 
ductive  method    of   reasoning,  a  method  which 


Moral  and  Material  Factors         6i 

men  are  sometimes  led  to  abandon  during  whole 
millenniums. 

That  is  the  story  of  most  advances  in  human 
ideas — politics,  religion,  medicine,  sociology.  Ad- 
vance is  achieved  by  the  destruction  of  elaborate 
theorems  with  which  the  past  has  covered  easily 
perceptible  facts.  Once  destroy  that  overgrowth, 
and  the  right  idea  emerges.  Parenthetically, 
you  will  realize  that  the  destruction  of  false 
theories  was  by  no  means  a  simple  matter;  that 
the  work  demanded  vast  learning,  infinite  toil, 
superhuman  patience.  If  we  are  to  do  this 
necessary  work  of  destruction,  we  cannot  afford 
to  dismiss  as  logic-chopping  and  hair-splitting 
the  analysis  of  those  theories  upon  which  false 
conceptions  are  built.  Men  are  governed  by 
theories — often  false  theories — and  any  approach 
to  their  reason  must  be  by  reason.  You  can- 
not cure  false  thinking  by  more  false  thinking. 
What  often  looks  like  complication  of  thought 
is  really  its  simplification. 

I  should  like  just  to  give  a  hint  of  the  way 
in  which,  in  the  field  of  international  politics, 
the  recognition  of  simple,  obvious  facts — a  rec- 
ognition calling  for  no  special  knowledge,  but 
possible  on  the  data  available  to  anyone  of  ordi- 
nary intelligence — is  prevented  by  old  theories, 
just  as  the  improbability  of  an  old  woman  causing 
a  storm  at  sea  was  hidden  from  the  learned  judge 
who  had  been  brought  up  in  a  mental  atmosphere 
of  witches  and  goblins. 


62  Arms  and  Industry 

Take  the  commonest  asstimptions  connected 
with  war  and  peace,  and  test  them  in  the  Hght,  not 
of  unknown  or  disputed  facts,  but  of  the  undis- 
puted facts  of  common  knowledge.  Here  is  Mr. 
Churchill,  who  lays  it  down  as  an  axiom  that 
the  way  for  nations  to  preserve  peace  is  "to  be 
so  strong  that  victory  in  the  event  of  war  is  cer- 
tain."  Now,  as  in  war  there  are  two  parties,  he 
has  propounded,  as  an  axiom,  a  physical  absur- 
dity. The  parties  cannot  apply  it,  since  each 
cannot  be  stronger  than  the  other. 

Here  is  Lord  Roberts,  who  says  that  British 
over-sea  trade  depends  upon  her  naval  superi- 
ority; that  if  a  foreign  nation  became  stronger  at 
sea  it  would  not  tolerate  her  trade  competition. 
Yet  the  trade  competition  of  Germany  has  grown 
and  developed  during  the  period  in  which  she 
was  Great  Britain's  inferior  at  sea,  and  she  has 
been  unable  to  check  that  competition  by  her 
naval  superiority.  The  statesmen  of  Europe  as- 
sume as  an  axiom  that  to  take  territory  is  to 
take  wealth — for  a  nation  to  enrich  itself.  And 
yet  the  richest  peoples  are  those  of  the  very 
smallest  nations.  We  are  told  that  Germany 
must  fight  England  because  she  is  hungry — she 
must  have  the  wheat  of  Canada  and  the  wool 
of  Australia.  She  can  have  them  now  by  paying 
for  them;  and  if  she  conquered  those  coimtries 
she  would  still  have  to  pay  for  them  in  the  same 
way.  The  British  talk  and  think  of  themselves  as 
the  "owners"  of  Canada — as  having  rights  of  pro- 


Moral  and  Material  Factors         63 

prietorship  over  eight  million  people  of  their  own 
race — whereas  a  moment's  reflection  shows  that 
they  have  no  such  rights  at  all.  The  militarists, 
who  talk  of  the  discipline  of  war  and  the  dangers 
of  peace  appeal  for  more  armaments  in  order  to 
preserve  peace  and  keep  us  from  war.  We  talk 
of  the  survival  of  the  fittest  by  war,  when  the 
evident  process  of  war  is  to  kill  off  the  more  fit 
and  to  insure  the  survival  of  the  less  fit.  Our 
public  men  make  our  flesh  creep  by  talking  know- 
ingly of  the  "intentions"  of  a  nation  of  sixty- 
five  million  people;  what  they  will  do  five,  ten, 
or  fifteen  years  hence;  when  we  should  laugh  at 
them  if  they  professed  to  know  the  intentions  of 
their  own  countrymen — even  at  the  next  General 
Election. 

Now,  we  find,  in  all  these  cases,  precisely 
what  we  found  in  the  case  of  the  learned  seven- 
teenth-century judges  who  justified  witchcraft. 
The  pundits,  learned  men  defending  the  old  con- 
ceptions, will  not  allow  us  to  judge  by  the 
ordinary  evidence  of  our  senses,  to  give  the  nat- 
ural interpretation  to  evident  facts.  We  must  see 
them  through  the  old  spectacles.  Thus,  because 
Roman  law  and  terminology  play  so  large  a  part 
in  forming  our  mental  pictures — and  to  the  Ro- 
man State  a  province  was  really  something  owned 
and  exploited  for  a  ruling  caste,  the  product  of  the 
mines  and  the  tribute  of  the  taxes  actually  going 
to  rulers  in  Rome — we  still  think  of  conquest  as 
the  acquisition  of  wealth  for  the  conquering  State ; 


64  Arms  and  Industry 

whereas,  of  course,  it  is  merely  the  enlargement  of 
the  area  of  administration,  and  to  suppose  that  an- 
nexation enriches  the  conquering  state  is  as  though 
one  should  assume  that  the  State  of  New  York 
woiild  enrich  New  Yorkers  by  conquering  Maine. 
Thus  it  comes  that  an  educated  man — the  pro- 
fessor of  a  great  university — asked  in  a  discussion : 
"If  conquest  does  not  enrich  the  conqueror,  why 
should  we  not  give  away  Canada?"  I  asked 
him  how  he  proposed  to  "give  away"  eight 
million  Canadians,  and  asked  him  also  if  he  would 
enumerate  what  were  the  functions  of  "owner- 
ship" that  Britain  was  now  able  to  exercise  over 
those  eight  millions  of  people. 

In  the  same  way  we  have  inherited  the  termino- 
logy and  the  mental  pictures  of  feudal  struggles,  of 
the  time  when  a  State  was  a  person,  a  family;  and 
we  talk  of  the  competition  of  German  trade  as 
though  Germany  were  an  economic  unit,  a  busi- 
ness house.  There  is,  of  course,  no  such  thing, 
properly  speaking,  as  German  trade  in  the  inter- 
national field.  We  talk  of  hating  or  of  having  a 
friendship  for  Germany  or  "Germans" — sixty- 
four  millions  of  men,  women,  and  children,  whom 
we  have  never  seen,  and  in  the  nature  of  things 
never  can  see;  who  do  not,  and  cannot,  come  into 
personal  contact  with  us;  whose  personal  char- 
acters and  idiosyncrasies  can  no  more  affect  us 
than  those  of  the  inhabitants  of  Baluchistan  or 
Thibet,  or,  for  that  matter,  of  Mars.  We  utterly 
fail  to  realize  that  we  are  talking  of  an  abstraction 


Moral  and  Material  Factors        65 

— ^we  might  as  well  talk  about  loving  or  hating  the 
Tropic  of  Capricorn. 

Nor  is  it  true  that  the  qualifications  and  dis- 
tinctions demanded  by  reasoning  make  for  confu- 
sion of  thought  or  necessarily  reduce  a  whole-souled 
homogeneous  doctrine  to  hair-splitting  expediences ; 
nor  that  if  we  admit  the  right  of  self-defence  we 
give  a  justification  to  any  war,  all  war,  since  a 
nation  can  always  argue  itself  into  the  belief  that 
it  is  the  aggrieved  or  attacked  party.  Moncure 
Conway  made  a  distinction  between  defensive  war 
which  he  justified,  and  war  of  aggression,  which 
he  did  not.  This  said  Mr.  Nevinson,  who  pre- 
ceded me  in  these  lectures,  is  equivalent  to  justify- 
ing all  war.  Yet  so  little  was  that  the  case  in 
Conway's  mind  that  he  condemned  even  the  War 
of  Independence  and  the  War  of  the  Union.  The 
admission  that  force  may  rightly  be  resisted  in  no 
way  blinded  him  to  the  truth  that  military  defence 
is  generally  the  worst  kind  of  defence;  that  it  is 
generally  clumsy,  ineffective,  futile,  and  stupid; 
that  the  instinct  to  fly  to  arms  in  revenge  for 
wrong  is  as  often  dictated  by  an  appetite  for  violent 
action  as  by  the  desire  to  right  a  wrong;  and 
that  the  indulgence  of  this  appetite,  the  luxury  of 
temper,  is  often  a  betrayal  of  the  cause  of  justice 
by  the  submission  of  that  cause  to  the  hazards  of 
physical  force. 

I  want  you  to  follow  with  me  the  distinction 
which  I  believe  was  in  Conway's  mind,  because  I 
don't  believe  we  can  properly  state  the  case  against 
s 


66  Arms  and  Industry 

force  until  we  have  that  distinction  clear.  Con- 
way's point  was  that  defence  is  not  war;  I  want  to 
show  that  this  was  not  an  attempt  to  alter  things 
by  altering  names.  It  was  an  attempt  to  dis- 
tinguish between  the  name  and  the  thing;  to 
distinguish  between  two  very  different  things 
which  are  commonly  confused. 

How  shall  we  define  war?  Surely,  as  the  use  of 
physical  coercion  for  the  purpose  of  imposing  the 
will  of  one  group  upon  another,  and,  to  the  extent 
to  which  force  is  operative,  dispensing  with  the  need 
for  understanding  common  interest,  and  for  free 
agreement.  It  is  the  rule  of  coercion,  eliminating 
consent,  reason  and  co-operation  in  the  relationship 
of  the  two  parties  involved. 

Now,  I  like  to  think  that  Conway  saw  that 
defence,  the  resistance  to  the  employment  of 
military  force  against  you,  was  not  war  as  I  have 
defined  it,  but  the  negation  of  war — the  effort 
necessary  to  prevent  force,  your  enemy's  force, 
replacing  the  common  rea,son  of  both. 

Let  us  assume  two  parties  to  this  discussion. 
On  the  one  side  you  have  those  who  do  not  believe 
that  force  should  enter  into  human  relations,  who 
believe  that  it  should  be  excluded;  and  on  the 
other  side  you  have  those  who  believe  that  force 
must  be  the  ultimate  appeal,  the  ultimate  fact,  or  in 
human  affairs.  If  you  belong  to  the  first  party  (to 
which  I  claim  to  belong),  you  must,  says  Mr. 
Nevinson,  be  a  non-resister,  which  Conway  was 
not.     He,  Conway,  approved  self-defence;  there- 


Moral  and  Material  Factors        67 

fore  we  are  to  conclude  that  he  belongs  to  the 
force  party,  or  that  he  is  inconsistent. 

I  believe  that  this  is  simply  a  confusion  of  thought 
due  largely,  as  I  have  said,  to  the  inadequacy  of 
our  language. 

What  is  the  position?  I  say  that  a  difference 
between  two  parties  should  not  be  settled  by 
physical  force.  Therefore,  I  am  told,  if  some- 
one uses  physical  force  against  me,  I  should  sub- 
mit— thus  allowing  the  matter  to  be  settled  by 
physical  force.  But  that  is  precisely  the  solution 
to  which  my  principles  are  opposed.  How,  there- 
fore, can  I  approve  it?  If  I  am  true  to  my  prin- 
ciple, I  should  say  to  a  person  attacked:  "Since 
you  do  not  believe  that  this  matter  should  be 
settled  by  coercion,  try  and  prevent  it  being  settled 
in  that  way — that  is  to  say,  resist.  Neutralize  the 
force  of  the  other  party  by  equivalent  force.  But, 
having  so  neutralized  it,  see  that  you  do  not  use 
coercion  to  settle  the  matter  in  your  favour." 

Let  me  put  it  in  another  way;  and,  if  in  these 
illustrations  I  am  guilty  of  damnable  iteration,  I 
will  beg  you  to  consider  that  this  is  a  matter 
in  which  infinite  confusion  exists,  and  even  the 
simplest  illustrations  seem  to  mislead.  Suppose 
I  declare  to  one  of  you  that  you  owe  me  money. 
You  deny  it.  I  say:  "Well,  I  believe  that  I  am 
right,  and,  as  I  am  the  stronger  party,  I  am  go- 
ing to  take  it."  I  attack  you;  you  resist  and 
succeed  in  disarming  me.  You  then  say:  "I  have 
neutralized  your  force  by  my  own.     I  have  taken 


68  Arms  and  Industry 

your  arm  from  you.  I  will  now  hear  what  you 
have  to  say  as  to  why  I  should  pay  you  money. 
The  justice  of  the  case  is  going  to  settle  this  matter, 
not  force." 

So  far  you  would  be  a  pacifist.  If,  however, 
you  said:  "  Since  you  have  no  means  of  compelling 
this  payment,  I  am  not  going  to  worry  as  to 
whether  I  owe  you  money  or  not" — then  you 
would  be  a  militarist,  because  you  would  be  using 
your  force,  though  passively,  to  settle  the  matter 
to  your  advantage,  irrespective  of  right.  Still 
more,  if  you  said:  " Since  preponderant  force  is  the 
final  judgment ;  since  it  is  the  law  of  life  that  the 
strong  eats  up  the  weak ;  and  since  the  prepond- 
erant power  has  passed  from  you  to  me,  I  am  now 
going  to  see  that  you  pay  me  money" — would  you 
be  a  militarist. 

Assume,  however,  that  you  are  not  sufficiently 
strong  to  resist  me,  and  that  you  call  in  the  police- 
man. What  is  his  role  ?  It  is  to  prevent  me  from 
using  coercion  against  you.  He  says:  "I  will  see 
that  this  matter  is  not  settled  by  force.  We  will 
have  the  judge  sift  it  out;  and  reason,  the  best 
reason  that  we  can  obtain,  shall  settle  it,  not  force. 
We  are  here  to  prevent  a  settlement  by  force. " 

In  every  civilized  country  the  basis  of  the 
relationship  on  which  the  community  rests  is  this: 
no  individual  is  allowed  to  settle  his  differences 
with  another  by  coercion.  But  does  this  mean  that, 
if  one  threatens  to  take  my  purse,  I  am  not  allowed 
to  use  force  to  prevent  such  coercion?    That,  if 


Moral  and  Material  Factors         69 

he  threatens  to  kill  me,  I  am  not  to  defend  myself, 
because  the  "individual  citizens  are  not  allowed  to 
settle  their  differences  by  force"?  It  is  because  of 
that,  because  the  act  of  self-defence  is  an  attempt 
to  prevent  the  settlement  of  a  difference  by  force, 
that  the  law  justifies  it. 

But  the  law  would  not  justify  me  if,  having  dis- 
armed my  opponent,  having  neutrahzed  his  force 
by  my  own  and  re-established  the  social  equi- 
librium, I  immediately  proceeded  to  upset  it  by 
asking  him  for  his  purse  on  pain  of  murder.  I 
should  then  be  settling  the  matter  by  force — I 
should  then  have  ceased  to  be  a  pacifist,  (or  per- 
haps should  I  say  "civilist"?)  and  have  become  a 
miHtarist. 

That  is  the  difference  between  the  two  concep- 
tions. The  militarist  says:  "Force  alone  can 
settle  these  matters;  it  is  the  final  appeal;  there- 
fore fight  it  out.  Let  the  best  man  win.  When 
you  have  preponderant  strength,  impose  your 
view.  Force  the  other  man  to  your  will,  not 
because  it  is  right,  but  because  you  are  able  to  do 
so."  This  is  the  "excellent  policy"  which  Lord 
Roberts  attributes  to  Germany  and  approves. 

We  say,  of  course;  "To  fight  it  out  settles 
nothing,  since  it  is  not  a  question  of  who  is  stronger, 
but  of  whose  view  is  right;  and,  as  that  is  not 
always  easy  to  establish,  it  is  of  the  utmost  import- 
ance in  the  interest  of  all  parties,  in  the  long  nm, 
to  keep  force  out  of  it." 

You  will  say:   "This  is  logic-chopping.     The 


70  Arms  and  Industry- 

final  instniment  used  in  all  these  matters  is  force; 
in  the  last  resort  you  would  use  the  army  to 
enforce  the  decisions  of  the  Court." 

But  my  whole  point  is  that  you  are  using  force 
for  the  prevention  of  individual  coercion,  for  the 
neutralization  of  force,  not  for  the  settlement  of 
the  matter.  Trial  by  battle  was  settlement  by 
force. 

Indeed,  in  this  country  at  least,  the  final  appeal 
between  the  citizens  is  not  force,  because  we  deter- 
mine how  the  army  shall  be  used  by  reason,  by 
Parliament,  by  the  vote.  The  army  acts  as  the 
voter  directs,  not  the  voter  as  the  army  directs. 
In  Venezuela  or  in  Turkey  it  is  different,  and  it  is 
precisely  that  difference  which  distinguishes  oiu* 
civiHzation  from  theirs. 

If  we  are  in  disagreement  about  a  law,  we  do  not 
fight  it  out ;  we  argue  it  out  and  settle  it  by  ballot, 
not  bullets.  We  have  agreed  to  decide  by  the 
result  of  the  vote.     Where  does  force  come  in? 

Now,  of  course,  in  Venezuela  or  Turkey  or 
Mexico,  force,  the  armies  of  the  rival  Presidents, 
would  settle  it.  Venezuelan  society  is  really  based 
on  the  militarist  principle,  the  principle  of  force; 
ours  is  really  based  upon  the  civilist,  as  opposed 
to  the  militarist  principle. 

At  the  time  of  the  discussion  of  the  Parliament 
Act  a  correspondent  of  one  of  the  papers  asked 
this  question:  "When  the  House  of  Lords  has 
been  abolished  and  the  House  of  Commons  is 
supreme,  what  is  to  prevent  the  Radical  majority 


Moral  and  Material  Factors        71 

from  suspending  the  Septennial  Act,  voting  them- 
selves members  for  life  with  a  thousand  a  year 
apiece,  and  making  themselves  dictators  of  Great 
Britain?" 

Well,  what  is  there,  since  they.  Parliament, 
control  the  army  and  the  navy,  and  thus  can  over- 
bear all  the  nation?  If  you  say  that  the  army  and 
navy  are  mainly  Conservative,  and  would  not 
obey  a  Liberal  Government,  then  what  is  to 
prevent  a  Conservative  Government  from  doing 
it?  What,  in  other  words,  is  to  prevent  each  side 
using  force  when  it  finds  itself  in  possession,  to 
install  itself  definitely  in  power  until  dispossessed 
by  rival  force,  just  as  is  done  in  Nicaragua  or 
Mexico?  Nothing  in  this  world  save  the  mutual 
agreement  of  the  two  parties  concerned  that  the 
differences  between  them  shall  not  be  settled  in 
that  way — an  agreement  based  on  mutual  recog- 
nition that  that  is  a  miserably  poor  way  to  settle 
it,  that  force,  indeed,  cannot  "settle  it"  at  all — 
cannot  decide  what  is  in  the  best  interests  of  the 
parties  concerned,  it  can  only  decide  which  of 
them  is  stronger. 

What  does  it  mean  when  we  hear  of  a  country 
that  it  has  had  forty  revolutions  in  fifty  years? 
It  means  that  the  rival  parties  have  been  "settling" 
their  differences  by  force,  that  a  President  or  party 
in  power  is  not  prepared  to  yield  to  votes,  only  to 
coercion.  What  does  it  mean  when  the  President 
or  party  quietly  steps  down  from  power  when 
outvoted  but  that  they  have  decided  to  abide 


72  Arms  and  Industry 

by  votes,  and  not  to  introduce  the  element  of 
force? 

It  is  simply  untrue  to  say  that  the  Insurance 
Bill  has  become  law  because  Mr.  Asqmth  had  the 
army  behind  him;  for,  if  he  had  to  enforce  it  with 
the  army,  it  would  not  have  become  law.  Nor 
does  Mr.  Asquith  hold  office  because  he  can  wield 
armed  force;  it  is  a  matter  of  arrangement  and 
consent,  and,  incidentally,  society  progresses  to  the 
degree  to  which  we  can  eliminate  the  factor  of 
force  in  the  settlement  of  differences  between  us; 
and  I  will  venture  to  assert  that  this  is  the  Law 
of  Progress — the  Elimination  of  Physical  Force. 
For  where  we  keep  force  out  of  it  we  are  obliged 
to  use  our  reason,  to  find  what  is  best,  and  to 
discover  the  basis  of  permanent  settlement. 

Let  me  add  this.  We  only  drop  the  use  of  force 
when  it  becomes  difficult  of  use  or  ineffective,  and 
part  of  the  work  of  rendering  it  difficult  and 
ineffective  is  resistance  to  it.  Resistance  is  a 
necessary  part  of  achieving  the  general  recog- 
nition of  the  futility  of  force.  Of  course,  it  is 
not  the  only  part — I  think  it  soon  becomes  the 
least  important  part  of  the  process  of  such  recog- 
nition. But  in  the  earlier  stage,  when  we  are 
able  to  use  force — obviously,  effectively,  and  im- 
mediately to  impose  our  view — ^we  do  not  trouble  to 
find  a  reasoned  settlement  ,  or,  rather  should  I  say, 
we  are  not  compelled  to  find  a  reasoned  settlement. 
Professor  Giddings  has  put  it  a  little  obscurely, 
thus: 


Moral  and  Material  Factors         73 

"  So  long  as  we  can  confidently  act,  we  do  not  argue; 
but  when  we  face  conditions  abounding  in  uncertainty 
or  when  we  are  confronted  by  alternative  possibilities, 
we  first  hesitate,  then  feel  our  way,  then  guess,  and  at 
length  venture  to  reason.  Reasoning,  accordingly,  is 
that  action  of  the  mind  to  which  we  resort  when  the 
possibilities  before  us  and  about  us  are  distributed 
substantially  according  to  the  law  of  chance  occurrence 
or,  as  the  mathematician  would  say,  in  accordance 
with  "the  normal  curve"  of  random  frequency.  The 
moment  the  curve  is  obviously  skewed,  we  decide;  if 
it  is  obviously  'skewed  from  the  beginning,  by  bias  or 
interest,  by  prejudice,  authority,  or  coercion,  our 
reasoning  is  futile  or  imperfect.  So,  in  the  State,  if 
any  interest  or  coalition  of  interests  is  dominant,  and 
can  act  promptly,  it  rules  by  absolutist  methods. 
Whether  it  is  benevolent  or  cruel,  it  wastes  neither 
time  nor  resources  upon  government  by  discussion. 
But  if  interests  are  innumerable,  and  so  distributed  as 
to  offset  one  another,  and  if  no  great  bias  or  over- 
weighting anywhere  appears,  government  by  dis- 
cussion inevitably  arises.  The  interests  can  get 
together  only  if  they  talk.  If  power  shall  be  able  to 
dictate,  it  will  also  rule,  and  the  appeal  to  reason  will 
be  vain." 

Now,  it  is  obvious  that  the  character  of  any 
given  community  is  determined  by  the  character 
of  the  ideas  of  the  individuals  who  compose  it. 
The  difference  between  the  Turk — or,  for  that 
matter,  the  Zulu — and  ourselves  is  not  a  difference 
of  physical  force  or  raw  materials  of  natiire  (they 
have  splendid  physique,  a  soil  and  climate  as  good 


74  Arms  and  Industry 

as  our  own) ;  the  difference  is  one  of  ideas.  The 
history  of  civilization  is  the  history  of  the  develop- 
ment of  ideas.  It  is  a  truism;  but  one  of  those 
truisms  we  are  always  forgetting.  And  the  de- 
velopment of  ideas  is  correlated  to  the  decline  of 
physical  force  in  the  way  I  have  just  indicated. 
That  is  to  say,  where  physical  force  is  made  inoper- 
ative by  neutralization,  you  get  the  operation  of 
the  alternative  factor,  which  is  reason  and  adjust- 
ment.    And  that  is  the  case  against  physical  force. 

It  is  hardly  necessary  to  point  out  that,  in  order 
to  maintain  the  state  of  balance  or  equilibrium  in 
which  reason  works,  it  is  by  no  means  necessary 
to  meet  every  exhibition  of  physical  force  by  a  simi- 
lar exhibition.  Force  is  often  so  futile  and  in- 
effective as  not  seriously  to  influence  the  balance. 
The  growing  recognition  of  its  futility  and  mis- 
chief on  the  one  hand,  and  on  the  other  the  growing 
realization  of  the  superiority  of  reason,  prevents 
the  introduction  of  the  element  of  force,  as  we  have 
seen,  in  the  case  of  Governments  that  grow  from 
the  Venezuelan  to  the  English  type.  For,  of 
course,  an  equilibrium  can  as  well  be  maintained 
with  nothing  in  either  scale  as  with  millions  of 
tons  of  dangerously  explosive  material  in  both. 

If  you  still  deem  that  the  growing  rationalization 
of  conceptions  can  work  little  in  the  domain  of  inter- 
national politics  because  of  the  immense  strength 
of  the  intuitive  unreasoned  impulses  we  associate 
with  patriotism,  I  would  call  your  attention  again 
to  this  point. 


Moral  and  Material  Factors        75 

All  the  improvement  in  human  thought  shown 
by  the  period  of  the  Reformation — that  immense 
development  in  the  mind  of  Europe  which  enables 
Catholics  and  Protestants  to  live  in  complete  peace, 
when  less  than  three  centimes  ago  the  differ- 
ences between  them  were  the  cause  of  wars  and 
cruelties  and  abominations  more  vile  and  mon- 
strous even  than  those  which  occur  in  our  political 
quarrels;  the  abolition  of  witchcraft,  of  judicial 
torture,  of  barbaric  criminal  codes,  of  the  Inquisi- 
tion, of  the  duel — all  this  development  has  its  root 
in  reason,  in  argument,  in  discussion.  All  the  force 
of  intuition  was  on  the  side  of  the  retention  of  these 
things.  The  old  Inquisitor  was  quite  sure  that  he 
was  right;  the  Catholic  sure  that  on  the  night  of 
St.  Bartholomew  "God  would  recognize  His  own." 
Those  old  impulses  were  transformed  and  those  old 
evils  destroyed  by  reason.  As  I  have  said,  the 
odour  of  the  heretic  disappeared  when  certain 
books  had  been  written  and  certain  somewhat 
abstruse  points  of  theology  discussed. 

It  is  noteworthy,  by  the  way,  that  the  factors 
which  favoured  the  retention  of  the  right  of 
Governments  to  dictate  religious  belief  were 
infinitely  stronger  than  those  which  now  favoiir 
the  retention  of  force  for  the  imposition  of  the 
ideals  of  one  political  group  upon  another.  And 
I  would  ask  those  who  believe  that,  while  war  may 
have  lost  its  economic  advantage,  it  must  be  a 
permanent  element  in  the  settlement  of  the  moral 
differences  of  men,  to  think  for  one  moment  of  the 


76  Arms  and  Industry- 

factors  which  stood  in  the  way  of  the  abandonment 
of  the  use  of  force  by  Governments  and  by  one 
religious  group  against  another  in  the  matter  of 
reHgious  beUef .  On  the  one  hand  you  had  priestly 
authority,  with  all  the  prestige  of  historical  right 
and  the  possession  of  physical  power  in  its  most 
imposing  form,  the  means  of  education,  still  in 
its  hands;  Government  authority  extending  to  all 
sorts  of  details  of  life  to  which  it  no  longer  extends ; 
immense  vested  interests  outside  government ;  and 
finally  the  case  for  the  imposition  of  dogma  by  au- 
thority a  strong  one,  and  still  supported  by  popular 
passion.  And  on  the  other  hand  you  had  as  yet 
poor  and  feeble  instruments  of  mere  opinion — the 
printed  book  still  a  rarity,  the  Press  non-existent, 
communication  between  men  still  rudimentary, 
worse  even  than  it  had  been  two  thousand  years 
previously.  And  yet,  despite  these  immense 
handicaps  upon  the  growth  of  opinion  and 
intellectual  ferment  as  against  physical  force, 
it  was  impossible  for  a  new  idea  to  find  life  in 
Geneva  or  Rome,  or  Edinburgh  or  London,  with- 
out quickly  crossing  and  affecting  all  the  other 
centres,  and  not  merely  making  headway  against 
entrenched  authority,  but  so  quickly  breaking  up 
the  religious  homogeneity  of  States  that  not  only 
were  Governments  obliged  to  abandon  the  use  of 
force  in  religious  matters  as  against  their  subjects, 
but  religious  wars  between  nations  became  impos- 
sible, for  the  double  reason  that  a  nation  no  longer 
expressed  a  single  religious  belief  (you  had  the 


Moral  and  Material  Factors        i'] 

anomaly  of  a  Protestant  Sweden  fighting  in  alliance 
with  a  Catholic  France),  and  that  the  power  of 
opinion  had  become  stronger  than  the  power  of 
physical  force — because,  in  other  words,  the  limits 
of  military  force  were  more  and  more  receding. 

But  if  the  use  of  force  was  ineffective  against 
the  spiritual  possessions  of  man  when  the  arms  to 
be  used  in  their  defence  were  so  poor  and  rudi- 
mentary, how  could  a  Government  hope  to  crush 
out  by  physical  coercion  to-day  such  things  as  a 
nation's  language,  law,  literature,  morals,  ideals, 
when  it  possesses  such  means  of  defence  as  are 
provided  in  seciurity  of  tenure  of  material  possess- 
ions, a  cheap  literature,  a  popular  Press,  a  cheap 
and  secret  postal  system,  and  all  the  other  means 
of  rapid  and  perfected  intercommunication? 

You  will  notice  that  I  have  spoken  throughout 
not  of  the  defence  of  a  national  ideal  by  arms,  but 
of  its  attack;  if  you  have  to  defend  your  ideal  it 
is  because  someone  attacks  it,  and  without  attack 
your  defence  would  not  be  called  for. 

If  you  are  compelled  to  prevent  someone  using 
force  as  against  your  nationality,  it  is  because  he 
believes  that  by  the  use  of  that  force  he  can  destroy 
or  change  it.  If  he  thought  that  the  use  of  force 
would  be  ineffective  to  that  end  he  would  not 
employ  it. 

I  have  attempted  to  show  elsewhere  that  the 
abandonment  of  war  for  material  ends  depends 
upon  a  general  realization  of  its  futility  for  accom- 
plishing those  ends.     In  like  manner  does  the 


78  Arms  and  Industry 

abandonment  of  war  for  moral  or  ideal  ends  de- 
pend upon  the  general  realization  of  the  growing 
futility  of  such  means  for  those  ends  also. 

We  are  sometimes  told  that  it  is  the  spirit  of 
nationality — the  desire  to  be  of  your  place  and 
locality — that  makes  war.  That  is  not  so.  It  is 
the  desire  of  other  men  that  you  shall  not  be  of 
your  place  and  locality,  of  your  habits  and  tradi- 
tions, but  of  theirs.  Not  the  desire  of  nationality, 
but  the  desire  to  destroy  nationality  is  what  makes 
the  wars  of  nationality.  If  the  Germans  did  not 
think  that  the  retention  of  distinctive  nationality 
by  Poles  and  Alsatians  might  hamper  them  in  the 
art  of  war,  hamper  them  in  the  imposition  of  force 
on  some  other  groups,  there  would  be  no  attempt  to 
crush  out  this  special  possession  of  the  Poles  and 
Alsatians.  It  is  the  belief  in  force  and  a  preference 
for  settling  things  by  force  instead  of  by  agreement 
that  threatens  or  destroys  nationality.  And  I 
have  given  an  indication  of  the  fact  that  it  is  not 
merely  war,  but  the  preparation  for  war,  implying 
as  it  does  great  homogeneity  in  States  and  cen- 
tralized bureaucratic  control,  which  is  to-day  the 
great  enemy  of  nationality.  Before  this  tendency 
to  centralization  which  military  necessity  sets  up 
much  that  gives  colour  and  charm  to  European  life 
is  disappearing.  And  yet  we  are  told  that  it  is  the 
Pacifists  who  are  the  enemy  of  nationality,  and  we 
are  led  to  believe  that  in  some  way  the  war  system 
in  Europe  stands  for  the  preservation  of  nationality ! 

The  practical  question,  therefore,  is  this:  Are  th^ 


Moral  and  Material  Factors         79 

great  moral  divisions  of  the  great  world  such  that 
we  are  likely  to  find  them  expressed  in  one  national 
ideal  as  against  another  national  ideal?  In  actual 
politics  this  question  can  never  be  answered  in 
the  affirmative.  In  the  latent  conflicts  between 
Britain  and  Germany,  what  is  the  moral  ideal 
impelling  the  assumed  aggression  of  Germany?  If 
ends  which  cannot  be  expressed  in  terms  of  tangible 
advantage — extending  trade  and  territory  and  the 
rest — are  not  at  the  bottom  of  that  prospective 
aggression,  what  are  the  moral  motives  behind  it? 
I  have,  indeed,  seen  it  suggested  that  Germany 
will  enter  upon  a  crusade  to  subdue  Britain  in  the 
interests  of  autocracy  in  Europe;  and  such  argu- 
ments used  to  be  much  commoner  when  Russia 
was  the  enemy  instead  of  Germany. 

The  idea  that  the  mere  destruction  of  a  rival 
fleet  or  army  is  equivalent  to  the  "suppression" 
of  a  rival  nation's  moral  influence,  the  same  loose 
use  of  words  that  we  find  in  the  economic  sphere. 
The  conception  of  international  trade  competition 
as  the  conflict  of  rival  military  units,  the  idea 
that  the  military  defeat  of  Germany  would  imply 
the  removal  of  her  industrial  competition,  over- 
looks completely  the  fact  that  the  hands  and 
brains  of  sixty-five  millions  engaged  in  produc- 
ing and  manufacturing,  and  buying  and  selling, 
would  exist  after  the  destruction  of  the  German 
fleet  as  before,  and  that  no  essential  economic 
fact  would  be  altered  by  Germany's  military 
defeat.     So,    exactly    in    the    same  way,    those 


8o  Arms  and  Industry 

who  imagine  that  the  moral  and  intellectual 
possessions  of  a  people  can  be  taken  from  them  by 
military  force  have  simply  not  examined  the  limits 
of  that  force  in  our  time.  Even  though  Germany 
did  "vanquish  "  Britain,  some  fifty -five  or  sixty  mil- 
lions of  English-speaking  people — some  one  hun- 
dred and  fifty  millions  if  you  include  the  United 
States — would  remain  with  their  own  laws,  litera- 
ture, political  traditions  just  as  before  and  they 
would  remain  as  great  an  intellectual  and  moral 
force  in  the  world  as  ever.  Even  though  Germany 
were  so  completely  successful  as  to  be  able  to  effect 
the  incorporation  of  Britain  into  her  Empire  she 
would  then  necessarily  incorporate  the  very  ele- 
ments which  it  was  the  object  of  the  war  to  prevent 
from  touching  her  Empire;  a  war  undertaken  for 
the  purpose  of  destroying  anti-autocratic  elements 
would  have  resulted  in  introducing  into  the  new 
German  Empire  an  immensely  strong  element  of 
anti-autocratic  ferment.  All  experience  shows 
these  moral  and  spiritual  elements  to  be  impossible 
of  destruction,  even  where  the  disproportion  of 
power  in  favour  of  the  conqueror  is  overwhelming, 
as  in  the  case  of  Germany  in  her  Polish  and  Alsa- 
tian provinces.  The  characteristic  fact  in  the  his- 
tory of  the  relationship  of  the  Empire  to  the  Poles 
and  to  the  inhabitants  of  Alsace-Lorraine  is  that 
the  efforts  towards  Germanizing  have  failed  after 
half  a  century  of  struggle  in  the  one  case  and  more 
in  the  other.  Attempts  are  now  being  made  by 
Germany  to  get  rid  of  these  political  sores  which 


Moral  and  Material  Factors        8i 

by  such  palliatives  as  autonomous  government — an 
admission  that  the  policy  of  conquest  has  failed 
even  in  those  microscopic  cases.* 

And  if  you  now  say  that,  of  course,  no  such  effort 
of  incorporation  would  in  the  case  of  Britain  be 
made,  then  we  are  forced  to  the  conclusion  that 
British  political  philosophy  and  ideas  remain  as  part 
of  the  intellectual  ferment  of  the  world,  and  would 
go  on  unchecked. 

I  have  attempted  to  indicate  elsewhere  the  moral 
results  of  the  intangibility  of  material  wealth  in 
the  modem  world,  and  that  confiscation  of  private 
property  on  a  large  scale  by  a  conqueror  in  our 
day  is  impossible.  Canada  or  Australia  after 
German  conquest — ^if  we  could  imagine  such  a 
thing  possible — would  necessarily  remain  pretty 
much  the  same  Canada  or  Australia  as  before. 
Since  you  cannot  turn  the  business  man  out  of  his 
business  and  the  farmer  out  of  his  farm,  since  they 
are  thus  secure  in  the  means  of  livelihood  for  their 
families,  they  are  in  a  position  to  resist  all  effort  at 
Germanization.  They  will  not  send  their  children 
to  the  German  school,  nor  write  their  letters  in 
German,  nor  say  their  prayers  therein ;  and,  given 
all  the  factors  of  the  case,  it  would  be  a  physical 

*  On  the  occasion  of  the  Zabern  affair,  the  German  Chancellor 
said  in  the  Reichstag:  "It  is  evident  that  we  cannot  make 
North  German  Prussians  of  these  South  German  Alsatians." 
And  in  a  letter  written  just  previously  to  Professor  Lamprecht 
of  Leipzig, he  said:  "  Some  of  the  ideas  of  certain  of  our  German 
parties  as  to  what  military  force  can  accomplish  are  simply 
childish  in  their  naivete." 
6 


82  Arms  and  Industry 

impossibility  for  Germany  to  make  them  do  so, 
conquest  or  no  conquest.  It  was  not  always  so, 
but  it  is  so  to-day. 

That  is  why  I  have  spoken  of  military  force  as 
irrelevant  in  the  spiritual  conflicts  of  men.  Even 
assuming  that  moral  differences  did  coincide  with 
the  political  grouping,  which,  of  course,  they  do 
not,  even  then  the  obvious  limits  of  military  force 
in  the  modern  world  are  such  that  it  can  have  no 
real  bearing  upon  the  enforcement  of  a  moral  ideal. 

In  dealing  with  the  economic  case  I  have 
attempted  to  show  that  the  modem  intangibility 
of  wealth,  arising  from  the  credit  system,  is  due 
to  a  condition  of  interdependence  between  indi- 
viduals of  different  groups,  which  interdependence 
in  its  turn  has  arisen  from  the  international  division 
of  laboiu".  Lancashire  divides  the  work  of  cotton 
production  with  Louisiana,  and  cannot  do  its 
own  share  of  production  without  the  co-opera- 
tion of  that  foreign  State.  .  But  an  exactly  similar 
condition  of  intellectual  interdependence  has  arisen 
from  the  fact  that  the  intellectual  divisions  of 
mankind  as  well  as  their  material  and  economic 
activities  now  cut  athwart  political  frontiers. 
The  questions  which  really  divide  men — opposing 
conceptions  of  government  and  society.  Socialism 
as  against  individualism,  etc. — are  not  French  or 
German  or  British  conceptions,  but  are  ideas 
common  to  all  these  nations.  Germany  is  more 
socialistic  in  the  general  sense  than  is  Britain; 
Britain  is  more  democratic;  it  is  not  British  Par- 


Moral  and  Material  Factors         83 

Hamentarism  that  worries  the  German  Govern- 
ment, but  German  Social  Democracy.  For  Ger- 
many to  "destroy"  Britain  would  not  solve  the 
problem.  There  could  be  no  such  event  as  anti- 
Socialist  Germany  fighting  a  Socialist  Britain. 
The  armies  of  the  nations  could  not  embody  the 
rival  ideas,  the  growth  of  these  ideas  having  en- 
tirely disregarded  political  grouping.  We  have 
here,  therefore,  all  the  factors  which  led  to  the 
abandonment  of  military  force  between  religious 
groups  in  Europe  three  or  four  centtuies  ago. 
Indeed,  the  factors  which  favoured  the  reten- 
tion of  the  right  of  Governments  to  dictate  reli- 
gious belief  were  infinitely  stronger  than  those 
which  now  favour  the  retention  of  force  for  the 
imposition  of  the  ideals  of  one  political  group  upon 
another. 

War  between  the  religious  groups  was  brought 
to  an  end  by  saner  conceptions  concerning  the 
relation  of  physical  coercion  to  religious  opinion — 
saner  conceptions  due  to  the  discussions  which 
were  the  outcome  of  the  Reformation.  A  similar 
process  will  destroy  political  wars. 

The  final  entrenchment  of  our  critics  is,  that 
the  general  realization,  by  European  opinion,  of 
the  new  facts  of  life  which  make  war  morally 
and  materially  futile  cannot  be  expected;  that 
the  nations  are  impervious  to  argument,  the  pub- 
lic impervious  to  instruction.  Well,  the  facts  I 
have  cited  show  it  not  to  be  true.  But  if  it  were 
true,  what  should  we  do?    Should  we  assimie  that 


84  Arms  and  Industry 

because  men  do  not  readily  see  the  facts,  therefore 
we  should  not  endeavour  to  ascertain  them; 
that,  because  men  are,  in  part,  guided  by  tem- 
per and  passion,  we  should  not  try  any  more  to 
find  the  truth  in  these  matters?  Such  a  conclu- 
sion woiild  involve  a  fatalism  which  is  and  must 
be  alien  to  the  Western  World.  We  do  and  must 
reason  and  talk  about  these  things  with  more  or 
less  of  wisdom ;  we  all  assume  that  men  will  listen 
to  reason  and  are  not  indifferent  to  the  truth 
when  it  is  shown  them.  The  fact  that  preachers 
preach,  that  men  produce  books  and  write  in 
newspapers — implies  that  they  all  believe  that  in 
the  end  their  preaching  and  talking  and  writing 
and  reasoning  will  do  something  to  modify  human 
conduct. 

And,  in  the  end,  that  belief  will  be  justified. 
What  we  call  public  opinion  does  not  descend  upon 
us  from  the  outside,  is  not  something  outside  our 
acts  and  volition,  but  the  reflection  of  those  acts; 
it  is  not  made  for  us,  we  make  it.  That  we  are 
the  instruments  of  our  own  salvation,  that,  with- 
out the  act  of  the  individual  there  can  be  no  sal- 
vation, is  a  truth  that  has  the  sanction  alike  of 
economics,  of  morals,  and  of  religion.  And  the 
contrary  view — that  nothing  that  we  can  do  will 
affect  our  destiny — is  one  that  the  Western  World 
and  its  religion  have  rejected.  For,  to  the  degree 
to  which  it  is  accepted,  it  involves  stagnation  and 
decline.  If  it  were  true,  it  woiild  take,  from  the 
finer  activities  of  life,  all  that  gives  dignity  to  hu- 


Moral  and  Material  Factors        85 

man  society,  since  it  would  make  of  men  the  blind 
puppets  of  the  brute  forces  of  nature ;  it  would  im- 
ply the  decay  and  death  of  the  human  soul,  of 
the  better  things  for  which  men  live. 


Ill 

THE  INFLUENCE  OF  CREDIT  UPON 
INTERNATIONAL  RELATIONS 

(A  Lecture  delivered  before  the  Institute  of  Bankers  of  Great 
Britain,  January  17,  1912.) 

I  HAVE  SO  often  submitted  this  matter  to  the 
criticism  of  people  having  no  special  equipment 
for  understanding  the  more  fundamental  forces 
with  which  it  is  concerned,  that  the  pleasure  I  have 
in  laying  it  before  those  who  possess  such  special 
equipment  is,  I  imagine,  difficult  for  you  to  realise. 

Not  that  I  am  going  to  deal  with  any  abstract 
points  of  banking  theory  or  practice,  concerning 
which  I  have  no  particular  competence;  I  would 
not  come  here  with  the  presumption  of  being 
able  to  teach  you  anything  about  the  details  of 
your  own  work.  But  rather  do  I  want  to  call 
yoiu"  attention,  interrogatively,  to  certain  large 
social  and  economic  reactions  of  banking  as  a 
whole — certain  general  effects  of  a  condition  which 
has  grown  up,  to  some  extent  unnoticed,  perhaps, 
even  by  those  responsible  for  it.  To  produce 
this  condition  was  not  the  object  of  your  work, 
but  it  is  one  of  its  results,  and  as  I  think  you 

86 


Credit  and  International  Relations     87 

will  agree,  not  the  least  important.  And  if  I  can 
establish  this  connection,  you  at  least  will  be  able 
to  realize  the  force  and  sweep  of  the  factors  at 
work. 

The  title  of  this  address  might  suggest  to  you, 
perhaps,  that  I  was  going  to  deal  with  a  phase 
of  the  connection  between  banking  and  inter- 
national relations,  of  which  we  have  heard  a  great 
deal  of  late — I  mean  the  alleged  direct  interference 
of  eminent  financiers,  or  groups  of  financiers,  with 
the  negotiations  between  European  Governments. 
Well,  that  is  not  the  phase  with  which  I  intend  to 
deal,  except  that  in  a  word  or  two,  I  shall  try  to  re- 
duce it  to  its  right  proportions.  Among  those  who 
deal  with  international  affairs,  you  will  find  a  type 
of  writer,  with  a  taste  presumably  for  the  melo- 
dramatic, who  would  have  us  believe  that,  behind 
every  diplomatic  difference  and  every  international 
settlement  stands  what  he  is  apt  to  call  "the 
sinister  figure  of  the  international  financier." 
According  to  this  view,  nations  and  peoples  are 
mere  pawns  in  the  hands  of  those  who  constitute 
that  mysterious  entity  "the  money  power.' *  War 
is,  or  is  not  declared,  we  are  given  to  under- 
stand, because  "the  money  power"  wants  it,  or 
it  does  not  want  it.  You  are  aware,  of  course, 
of  the  somewhat  childish  confusion  between  the 
personal  power  or  influence  of  a  merchant  or 
financier  and  the  forces  of  which  he  may  be  a 
trustee,  which  makes  such  a  picture,  for  the  most 
part,  a  caricature.    Separate  even  the  most  power- 


S8  Arms  and  Industry 

ful  of  these  "sinister  figures"  from  the  interests 
or  the  economic  forces,  of  which  for  the  moment 
he  may  be  the  representative,  and  he  is  reduced  to 
practical  impotence. 

The  Bank  Court  may  make  the  Bank-rate 
(because  that  is  not  always  a  commercial  reality), 
but  it  cannot  make — ^at  most  it  can  but  register — 
the  market  rate.  A  Court  of  Law  does  not  make 
the  guilt  of  a  prisoner.  We  talk  commonly  of  an 
assize  court  holding  in  its  hands  the  issues  of  life 
and  death.  It  is  dramatic,  but  not  true,  except 
in  a  very  narrow  sense.  The  Court  cannot  hang  a 
man  plainly  innocent  for  stealing  a  pennyworth  of 
com,  although  it  could  have  done  so  two  or  three 
generations  ago.  It  cannot  flagrantly  flout  the 
law  of  evidence,  or  certain  customs  and  tradition ; 
it  is,  in  fact,  the  expression  of  forces  outside  its 
control.  In  the  same  way,  when  we  talk  of  a  group 
of  financiers  bringing  a  war  to  a  close  by  stopping 
supplies,  as  though  it  were  the  personal  fiat  of  the 
individuals  or  corporations  involved,  what  we 
really  mean  is  that  the  credit  of  the  particular 
Power,  to  which  supplies  have  been  refused,  is  no 
longer  sound — an  economic  fact  quite  outside  the 
control  of  the  bankers.  Had  its  credit  remained 
sound,  the  nation  in  question  could,  by  bettering 
the  terms,  have  raised  the  money  elsewhere. 

I  read  the  other  day  in  a  serious  review,  that  in 
the  recent  Franco-German  rivalry,  the  diplomats 
had  become  the  mere  mouthpieces  of  the  financiers, 
the  latter  being  able  by  their  influence  to  decree 


Credit  and  International  Relations    89 

the  course  of  events — to  render  it  impossible  or 
possible,  as  they  desired,  for  one  or  the  other  side 
to  declare  war — the  truth  being,  of  course,  that  dip- 
lomats and  financiers  alike  were  both  equally  im- 
potent in  the  face  of  a  financial  situation  due  to 
causes  and  events  stretching  over  a  generation.  For 
twenty  or  thirty  years,  Germany  had  been  a  devel- 
oping and  borrowing  nation,  and  France  a  saving 
and  lending  nation,  a  difference  due  to  economic, 
moral,  religious,  and  racial  forces,  over  which  the 
financiers  have  no  more  control  than  they  have  over 
the  tides  of  the  sea.  And  the  French  Govern- 
ment has,  within  the  last  few  weeks,  had  a  potent 
lesson,  showing  the  very  narrow  limits  within 
which  either  governments  or  financiers  can  control 
or  set  at  naught  the  impersonal  economic  forces  of 
the  modern  world.  They  have  learned  that, 
thanks  to  processes  familiar  to  you,  which  I  shall 
touch  on  in  some  detail  in  a  minute  to  illustrate 
certain  secondary  results,  it  has  become  impossible 
to  impose  more  than  a  momentary  check  upon 
French  money  going  to  the  help  of  German  credit, 
if  the  intricate  economic  needs  based  on  the  inter- 
dependence of  the  civilized  world  call  for  it. 

In  politics,  as  in  business,  art,  literature,  philo- 
sophy, religion,  or  medicine,  you  get  men  of 
capacity,  playing,  by  virtue  of  the  greater  skill 
with  which  they  apply  their  gifts,  whether  moral  or 
intellectual,  to  material  circumstances,  a  larger 
role  than  others  in  the  same  sphere  of  activity ;  but 
to  pretend  that  organized  finance  aims  in  any 


90  Arms  and  Industry 

special  sense  at  monopolizing  or  controlling  politi- 
cal power  is,  so  far  as  one  can  generalize  at  all  in 
the  matter,  to  turn  facts  upside  down.  For  the 
most  part,  it  is  not  the  banker  who  wants  to 
interfere  with  politics,  it  is  the  politician  who  wants 
to  interfere  with  banking:  all  that  the  banker 
generally  asks  of  politics  is  to  be  left  alone.  Again 
and  again,  in  the  history  of  banking,  from  the  days 
that  Kings,  as  a  matter  of  coiu-se,  debased  coinage 
to  their  personal  profit,  so  that  bankers  were  obliged 
to  resort  to  the  expedient  of  an  imaginary  coin,  do 
we  find,  especially  in  the  history  of  Continental 
banking,  that  pressure  has  been  brought  upon 
bankers  to  compel  them  against  their  judgment  to 
make  their  business  serve  some  political  end  of  the 
Government.  Again  and  again,  do  we  find  illicit 
political  pressure  put  upon  them  to  use  funds, 
entrusted  to  them,  for  purposes  which  such  trust 
did  not  imply.  I  think  it  is  'Courtois,  in  his 
"History  of  Banking  in  France,"  who  declares  that 
the  desperate  financial  disasters  which  marked  the 
history  of  France  for  the  best  part  of  a  century 
were  due  practically  to  one  cause,  and  to  one  cause 
only :  the  illicit  power  exercised  by  the  Government 
over  banks,  compelling  them  against  their  judg- 
ment to  make  advances  to  the  Government,  or  to 
favour  this  or  that  political  scheme  which  happened 
to  fit  in  with  the  political  needs  of  the  moment. 
He  declares  that  had  the  bankers  been  allowed  to 
carry  on  their  business  uninterfered  with,  like 
most  other  business  men,  an  infinity  of  suffering 


Credit  and  International  Relations    91 

and  poverty  wotild  have  been  spared  to  the 
country.  And  the  strength  of  this  feehng,  against 
being  mixed  up  with  poHtics  or  having  any  connec- 
tion with  the  State,  felt  by  Continental  financiers 
may  be  judged  by  the  vehemence  of  the  language 
used  in  this  respect  by  the  founders  of  the  Bank  of 
France. 

To  this  day,  the  connection  of  the  great  credit 
institutions  of  the  Continent  with  their  respective 
governments  is  a  very  much  closer  connection 
than  that  which  exists  between  the  banks  and 
the  government  in  this  country.  The  Syndicat 
des  Agents  de  Change  in  France,  for  instance, 
cannot,  or,  at  least,  does  not,  authorize  the 
official  quotation  of  a  security  on  the  Paris 
Bourse  without  the  express  sanction  of  the  Govern- 
ment :  and  although  such  control  has  never  received 
the  authority  of  an  Act  of  Parliament,  the  great 
French  credit  institutions  do  not  facilitate  the 
issue  of  any  large  foreign  government  loan  in 
France  unless  it  has  received  the  approval  of  their 
Government.  Indeed,  it  is  well  known  that  in  the 
issue  of  such  loans,  they  are  guided  to  no  small 
extent  by  the  political  necessities  of  the  Govern- 
ment. In  the  case  of  Germany,  political  control, 
though  not  operating  in  quite  the  same  way,  is  still 
more  direct.  Bismarck,  on  more  than  one  occa- 
sion, practically  compelled  banks  to  operate  on 
the  market  at  his  dictation,  in  order  that  he  might 
exercise  diplomatic  pressure  on  a  foreign  Govern- 
ment.    Whether  it  is  desirable  that  a  bank  should 


92  Arms  and  Industry 

be  compelled  to  carry  on  its  business,  not  solely 
with  a  view  to  its  security  and  prosperity  and  in 
the  interests  of  its  clients,  but  also  with  a  view  to 
purely  political  purposes,  is  a  question  on  which  I 
think  you  would  have  very  grave  doubts,  especially 
since,  as  I  think  I  shall  be  able  to  make  plain  to 
you  before  I  have  done,  the  political  object  almost 
always  miscarries  and  the  interference  has  had, 
both  with  France  and  Germany,  in  every  single 
important  case  shown  by  the  history  of  the  last 
forty  years,  effects  the  exact  contrary  to  those 
aimed  at  by  the  respective  Governments. 

It  is  not  therefore  of  this  alleged  personal  control 
of  policy  by  great  financial  interests,  a  subject 
upon  which  a  vast  deal  of  nonsense  has  been 
written  owing  to  the  misconception  which  I 
have  sought  to  explain,  that  I  want  to  treat,  but 
the  influence  of  banking  operating  in  quite  another 
way:  by  the  unnoticed  impersonal  forces  which 
the  ordinary  weekday,  humdrum  work  of  banking 
has  called  into  existence;  the  cumulative  outcome 
of  those  numberless  everyday  operations  that  take 
place  almost  completely  outside  the  control  of 
governments  or  financiers :  often  unknown  to  them ; 
often  in  spite  of  them;  representing  forces  far  too 
strong  and  far  too  elusive  for  such  control ;  so  much 
a  part  of  the  warp  and  woof  of  the  ordinary  life  of 
the  world  that  they  are  rapidly  and  surely  weaving 
society  into  one  indissoluble  whole.  I  want  to 
treat  of  banking  as  a  permanent  and  integral  part 
of   the   great   social   organism — the   outcome   of 


Credit  and  International  Relations    93 

functions  which  are  as  vital,  as  unconscious,  and 
as  uncontrollable  as  respiration,  or  digestion  in 
the  case  of  an  animal  organism. 

I  shotdd  here,  perhaps,  anticipate  a  caveat  that 
you  might  enter  touching  this  illustration  or  ana- 
logy, which,  like  all  illustrations  and  analogies, 
is  liable  to  misuse.  If  these  forces,  you  may  argue, 
are  so  powerful  as  to  offset  the  force  of  political 
combinations,  why  are  we  worrying  about  the 
matter  at  all?  We  have  only  to  let  the  politicians 
do  their  worst.  Such  a  conclusion  would  not  be 
justified.  While  the  vital  processes  of  an  organ- 
ism— respiration,  digestion,  blood-circulation — are 
unconscious  and  uncontrollable,  the  life  of  the 
whole  thing  may  depend  upon  whether  conscious 
volition  is  so  used  as  to  enable  it  to  carry  on  those 
processes  favourably,  and  the  more  that  the  organ- 
ism grows  in  vitality  by  adaptation  to  its  environ- 
ment, the  more  important  does  the  factor  of 
conscious  volition,  which,  in  the  case  of  man,  means 
his  intelligence,  become.  A  man  cannot  control 
his  breathing,  but  he  can  bring  it  to  a  stop  by 
committing  suicide,  or  damage  it  by  catching 
bronchitis  from  sitting  in  a  draught;  he  cannot 
control  his  digestion,  but  he  can  avoid  indigestion 
by  refraining  from  poisonous  foods.  If  you  catch 
cold  or  take  poison,  you  are  not  master  of  the  fact 
as  to  whether  you  will  die,  your  conscious  volition 
cannot  control  it — unless  you  are  a  Christian 
Scientist,  and  Christian  Science  has  not  yet  been 
applied  to  banking.     But  you  are  master  of  the 


94  Arms  and  Industry 

fact  as  to  whether  you  will  sit  in  a  draught  or 
swallow  horribly-tasting  things,  and  you  are  mas- 
ter of  that  fact,  thanks  to  the  development  of  sen- 
sory nerves.  In  the  absence  of  these  the  organism 
would  die.  If  we  can  imagine  an  animal  that  did 
not  feel  hunger  or  cold  or  the  bad  taste  of  poisons, 
it  would  very  soon  be  wiped  out.  It  would  have 
nothing  to  guide  it  in  its  adaptation  to  its  environ- 
ment, none  of  the  acute  promptings  which  result 
in  placing  it  in  the  most  favourable  conditions  to 
allow  the  imconscious  and  uncontrollable  processes 
to  be  carried  on. 

Now,  credit  is  performing,  among  other  func- 
tions, this  immense  service  to  the  economic  and 
social  organism;  it  is  providing  it  with  sensory 
nerves,  by  which  damage  to  any  part  or  to  any 
function  can  be  felt,  and,  thanks  to  such  feeling, 
avoided. 

By  banking,  I  mean  all  that  the  word  can 
legitimately  imply— the  whole  process  of  the  sys- 
tematic organisation  of  credit.  And  I  think  I  can 
show  you  that  banking,  in  this  large  sense,  thanks 
to  the  evolution  and  development  of  those  sensory 
nerves,  is  bound  to  bring  about  not  merely  a 
considerable,  but  a  revolutionary,  change  in  the 
general  conduct  of  the  organism  which  we  call 
human  society — ^bringing  vividly  to  its  conscious- 
ness certain  errors  in  conduct,  errors  which  become 
increasingly  painful  by  reason  precisely  of  the 
developments  of  its  nervous  system. 

This  sensitiveness  is  shown,  of  course,  mainly 


Credit  and  International  Relations    95 

where  the  organism  works  with  most  difficulty — in 
the  relationship  between  nations.  And  I  believe 
that  in  the  never-ending  struggle  which  every 
nation  carries  on,  in  the  attempt  to  adapt  itself  to 
environment,  it  is  bound  to  discard  more  and  more 
certain  habits  which  have  marked  it  in  the  less 
developed  stage. 

What  are  the  principles  which  have  dictated  the 
general  conduct  of  nations  the  one  to  the  other  in 
the  past — not  merely  in  Europe,  but  in  Christen- 
dom; and  which  have  created  what  we  call  the 
European  situation,  with  its  competition  of  arma- 
ments and  all  its  recurrent  dangers? 

There  is  no  occasion  to  use  exaggerated  language 
about  that  situation  and  its  dangers ;  the  one  point 
upon  which  men  of  all  opinions  are  agreed  is  that 
the  situation  is  very  dangerous  indeed.  Your  big 
navy  man,  your  advocate  of  universal  military  ser- 
vice, justifies  his  demands  for  an  enormous  expen- 
diture of  money  and  energy  by  reference  to  our 
ever-increasing  danger.  If  that  danger  did  not 
exist,  these  enormous  sacrifices,  which  he  demands, 
would  not  be  justified.  And  those  of  us  who  are 
not  concerned  with  politics,  and  take  no  side  on  the 
question,  the  business  world,  for  instance,  of  which 
this  city  is  the  centre,  know  that  war  would  bring 
damage,  of  which  no  man  can  foretell  the  limit. 

What  sets  up  this  situation,  turns  the  world  in 
this  way  into  a  volcano,  ever  threatening  eruption? 
The  necessity  for  defence?  But  that  implies  that 
someone  may  attack — that  someone  has  a  motive 


96  Arms  and  Industry 

for  attack;  and,  if  the  danger  is  as  imminent  as 
these  vast  preparations  would  suggest,  it  means 
that  such  a  motive  must  be  a  strong  one.  It 
is  the  assumption  that  this  strong  motive  does 
exist  which  creates  the  whole  situation.  To  say- 
that  the  likelihood  of  being  attacked  depends  upon 
the  likelihood  of  someone  making  the  attack  is, 
of  course,  to  utter  a  truism,  and  that  leads 
us  to  ask  what  is  the  impelling  motive,  material  or 
moral,  making  this  attack  as  probable  as  we 
allege. 

Those  whose  special  competence  is  the  philo- 
sophy of  statecraft,  from  Aristotle  and  Plato, 
passing  by  Machiavelli  and  Clausewitz  down  to  Mr. 
Roosevelt  and  the  German  Emperor,  or,  for  that 
matter,  to  Mr.  Blatchf ord,  have  never  for  a  moment 
disguised  their  opinion  that  this  motive  does  exist. 
It  forms  the  basic  premise  of  the  whole  science  of 
international  relationship  as  we  now  know  it: 
"war  is  a  part  of  policy,"  in  Clausewitz's  phrase. 
Since  nations  mUvSt  struggle  one  with  the  other 
for  their  "place  in  the  sun,"  the  race  is  to  the 
strong  militarily:  the  strong  are  able  to  benefit 
themselves  at  the  expense  of  the  weak,  and  a 
nation  must  be  strong  militarily  and  use  its  force, 
or  threaten  to  use  its  force,  to  ensure  an  advan- 
tageous situation  in  the  world.  And  this  concep- 
tion is  justified  on  moral  grounds  by  an  appeal  to 
the  analogies  of  evolution,  and  we  are  told  that  its 
final  justification  is  to  be  found  in  the  fact  that  such 
struggle  ensures  the  survival  of  the  fittest.    It  is 


Credit  and  International  Relations    97 

the  great  struggle  for  life  which  is  coterminous  with 
the  whole  of  organic  existence. 

What  we  may  properly  call  these  foundations  of 
European  statecraft  have  been  well  stated  by  two 
writers  of  acknowledged  eminence — a  German  on 
the  one  side  and  an  Anglo-Saxon  on  the  other — and 
in  essence  their  statements  are  identical.  Baron 
von  Stengel,  who  was  Germany's  delegate  to  the 
first  Hague  Conference,  declares  that  "every  great 
Power  must  employ  its  efforts  towards  exercising 
the  largest  influence  possible,  not  only  in  European 
but  in  world  politics,  and  this  mainly  because 
economic  power  depends  in  the  last  resort  on 
political  power,  and  because  the  largest  partici- 
pation possible  in  the  trade  of  the  world  is  a  vital 
question  for  every  nation." 

On  the  other  side  of  the  world,  you  have  the 
great  Anglo-Saxon  writer.  Admiral  Mahan,  urging 
an  exactly  similar  point  of  view.  Admiral  Mahan 
says: 

"The  old  predatory  instinct  that  he  should  take  who 
has  the  power  survives  .  .  .  and  moral  force  is  not 
sufficient  to  determine  issues  unless  supported  by 
physical.  Governments  are  corporations,  and  cor- 
porations have  no  souls;  governments,  moreover,  are 
trustees,  and  as  such  must  put  first  the  lawful  interests 
of  their  wards — their  own  people.  .  .  .  More  and 
more  Germany  needs  the  assured  importation  of  raw 
materials,  and,  where  possible,  control  of  regions  pro- 
ductive of  such  materials.  More  and  more  she  requires 
assured  markets  and  security  as  to  the  importation  of 

7 


98  Arms  and  Industry 

food,  since  less  and  less  comparatively  is  produced 
within  her  own  borders  by  her  rapidly  increasing 
population.  This  all  means  security  at  sea.  .  .  . 
Yet  the  supremacy  of  Great  Britain  in  European  seas 
means  a  perpetually  latent  control  of  German  com- 
merce. .  .  .  The  world  has  long  been  accustomed  to 
the  idea  of  a  predominant  naval  power,  coupling  it 
with  the  name  of  Great  Britain,  and  it  has  been  noted 
that  such  power,  when  achieved,  is  commonly  often 
associated  with  commercial  and  industrial  predomi- 
nance the  struggle  for  which  is  now  in  progress  between 
Great  Britain  and  Germany.  Such  predominance 
forces  a  nation  to  seek  markets,  and,  where  possible, 
to  control  them  to  its  own  advantage  by  preponderant 
force,  the  ultimate  expression  of  which  is  possession. 
.  .  .  From  this  flow  two  results:  the  attempt  to 
possess  and  the  organisation  of  force  by  which  to 
maintain  possession  already  achieved.  .  .  .  This 
statement  is  simply  a  specific  formulation  of  the 
•  general  necessity  stated ;  it  is  an  inevitable  link  in  the 
chain  of  logical  sequences — industry  markets,  control, 
navy  bases.  .  .  ."* 

Thus  we  get  the  essence  of  the  whole  philosophy 
which  has  its  final  expression  in  an  Armament  Bill 
for  Great  Britain  of  over  three  hundred  and  fifty 
million  dollars  a  year,  and  for  the  world  of  some- 
thing like  two  billion  five  hundred  million  dollars 
a  year,  and  a  situation  of  such  tension  that  at 
times  it  hangs  like  a  nightmare  over  civilization. 

Well,  I  want  to  show  you  that  it  is  the  function 

*"The  Interest  of  America  in  International  Conditions." 
Sampson  Low,  Marston  and  Co.,  London. 


Credit  and  International  Relations     99 

of  banking  to  play  a  dominant  part  in  the  absolute 
break-up  of  this  whole  philosophy;  that  this  con- 
ception has  become,  by  virtue  of  the  forces  at  work 
during  the  last  half-century,  and  especially  during 
the  last  twenty  or  thirty  years,  obsolete;  that  a 
nation's  prosperity  does  not  and  cannot  depend 
upon  its  military  power;  that  wealth  in  the  modern 
world  has  become  intangible  so  far  as  conquest  or 
confiscation  is  concerned ;  that  military  power  can 
not  latently  or  actively  control  markets  to  its  own 
advantage;  that,  indeed,  the  whole  assumption 
that  the  political  entity  can  be  made  to  coincide 
with  the  economic  entity,  in  a  world  in  which  the 
economic  frontiers  expand  and  contract  in  infinite 
degrees  and  in  infinite  directions  yearly,  almost 
daily,  ignores  the  most  potent  factors  touching  the 
proposition;  that  political  power  has  ceased  to  be 
a  determining  factor  in  the  economic  sphere;  that 
it  is  an  outrageous  absurdity  to  represent  a  nation, 
a  large  part  of  whose  population  would  starve  to 
death  but  for  the  economic  co-operation  of  other 
nations,  as  a  separate  entity  struggling  against 
other  distinct  entities;  that  nations  are  no  longer 
such  separate  organisms,  but  interdependent 
parts  of  the  same  organism;  that  the  whole  bio- 
logical analogy  has  been  misapplied;  and  that 
banking  is  the  final  expression  of  the  forces  destined 
to  make  clear  these  propositions — to  render  mili- 
tary force  economically  futile. 

If  it  can  be  shown  that  these  propositions  are 
largely  and  generally  true,  I  think  you  will  agree 


100  Arms  and  Industry 

with  me  that  the  modification  in  political  concep- 
tions which  banking  is  destined  to  bring  about, 
is  not  incidental  or  trivial,  but  fundamental,  basic 
in  character,  truly  what  I  have  called  it,  revolu- 
tionary, destined  to  play  a  large  part  in  indicating 
a  way  out  of  what  is  perhaps  the  gravest  problem 
to-day  affecting  our  civilization. 

I  want  first  to  call  your  attention  to  this  fact: 
that  all  these  great  authorities  to  whom  I  have 
referred  assume  that  the  relationship  between 
States  is  unchangeable  in  character,  that  what  it 
has  been  it  always  will  be,  that  Aristotle's  or 
Machiavelli's  conception  of  these  things  is  sub- 
stantially as  true  of  our  day  as  of  theirs.  Well, 
now  I  will  put  a  case  to  you. 

When  a  Viking  king  of  old  landed  on  these 
shores  from  his  own  State,  and  hammered  his  way 
into  a  Saxon  stronghold,  capturing  all  the  cattle 
and  com  and  slaves  and  women  that  he  could  lay 
his  hands  upon,  and  squeezing  the  population  for 
Danegeld,  he  sailed  back  to  his  own  State  just  so 
much  the  richer  by  what  he  could  load  on  his  ships, 
and  when  he  got  back  home  his  own  State  had 
practically  suffered  nothing  by  the  devastation 
which  he  might  have  created  in  securing  his  loot. 
Now  imagine  a  modem,  a  German  Viking  landing 
on  British  shores,  rifling  the  great  national  treasury 
chest,  say  the  vaults  of  the  Bank  of  England,  de- 
stroying our  railroads,  destroying  all  the  com- 
mercial records  he  could  lay  his  hands  on,  blowing 
safe  deposit  vaults  into  the  air,  putting  into  effect, 


Credit  and  International  Relations  loi 

indeed,  Blucher's  "What  a  city  to  sack!"  as  ruth- 
lessly as  he  liked,  loading  his  ships  with  the  thirty 
or  forty  milHons  that  he  coiild  secure  in  this  way, 
and  sailing  back  to  Germany.  Would  he,  like  his 
predecessor  of  the  eighth,  ninth,  or  tenth  century, 
have  found  that  as  an  offset  to  the  proceeds  of  his 
little  expedition  there  was  no  damage  to  German 
trade  or  to  German  prosperity?  Take  one  item 
only — the  plunder  of  the  Bank  of  England's 
metallic  reserve.  Remembering  the  special  posi- 
tion of  the  Bank  of  England,  the  relation  of  its 
small  reserve  to  the  large  international  business 
done,  and  recalling  certain  incidents  in  which  the 
State  bank  of  a  foreign  country  at  a  time  when  that 
country  was  in  a  political  sense  bitterly  hostile  to 
us,  has  in  quite  recent  times  come  to  its  help,  I 
think  many  will  agree  that  I  am  hardly  overstating 
the  case  in  saying  that  that  act  of  unimaginable 
economic  vandalism  would  close  the  Bank  of 
Germany  itself.  Even  if  it  did  not  do  that,  it 
would  involve  loss  and  cost  to  German  finance  and 
trade  greatly  exceeding  in  amount  the  value  of  the 
loot  secured.  An  operation  of  the  kind  I  have  de- 
scribed, quite  profitable  in  the  old  days  from  the 
point  of  view  of  the  invader,  would  in  our  days  not 
merely  be  profitless,  but  would  involve  to  the 
conqueror,  a  loss  infinitely  greater  in  amount  than 
the  tangible  booty  which  he  could  secure. 

Can  we  say,  therefore,  that  the  international 
relationship  of  these  two  cases  is  identical,  un- 
changed in  character?    That  plunder,   and  the 


I02  Arms  and  Industry 

motive  leading  to  it,  is  quite  as  simple  a  matter 
now  as  then?  Of  course  we  cannot.  It  has 
fundamentally  changed.  The  whole  character  of 
the  relationship  is  different  owing  to  factors  intro- 
duced by  our  credit  system. 

That  is  not  all.  I  have  spoken  of  the  intan- 
gibility of  wealth.  It  is  intangible  in  two  ways. 
You,  of  coiuse,  know  that  most  wealth  in  its 
modem  form  depends  upon  the  security  of  com- 
mercial contract,  and  that  if  you  upset  that  by 
overriding  the  processes  of  law  by  military  power — • 
if  the  Courts  will  not  enforce  the  mortgage  bond — 
the  wealth  which  these  instruments  represented 
disappears,  in  large  part  at  least.  The  confidence 
which  gives  them  value  has  gone.  But  modern 
wealth  is  intangible  in  a  second  sense. 

The  confiscation  of  wealth  on  a  large  national 
scale  has  become  impossible  owing  to  the  damage 
which  would  react  on  the  confiscator  by  virtue  of 
the  economic  forces  which  banking  embodies,  and 
by  virtue  of  the  fact,  again  owing  to  banking,  that 
the  immense  bulk  of  wealth  now  consists,  not  in 
chattels  which  can  be  carried  off — transferred  by 
force  from  one  party  to  another — but  in  multi- 
farious activities  of  the  commimity  which  must 
imply  freedom  not  only  to  produce  but  to  enjoy 
and  to  consume. 

"The  glittering  wealth  of  this  golden  isle," 
which  some  political  poetaster  tells  us  is  so  tempt- 
ing to  invaders,  consists  for  the  most  part  in  the 
fact  that  the  population  travel  a  great  deal  by 


Credit  and  International  Relations  103 

train,  ride  in  motor  cars  with  rubber  tires,  propelled 
by  petrol  from  Russian  wells,  and  eat  meat  carried 
on  Argentine  rivers  and  wheat  on  Canadian  rail- 
ways. If  the  invader  reduced  the  population  of 
these  islands  to  starvation,  the  "  Was  fur  Plunder  " 
of  old  Blucher's  phrase — this  booty  which  so 
tempts  the  invader,  would  have  simply  vanished 
into  thin  air  and  with  it,  be  it  noted — a  most 
important  fact — a  good  deal  of  the  invader's  as 
well. 

If  this  is  not  intangibility  the  word  has  no  mean- 
ing. Speaking  broadly  and  generally,  the  con- 
queror in  our  day  has  before  him  two  alternatives : 
to  leave  things  alone,  and  in  order  to  do  that  he 
need  not  have  left  his  shores:  or  to  interfere  by 
confiscation  in  some  form,  in  which  case  he  dries 
up  the  source  of  the  profit  which  tempted  him. 
Just  how  far  this  intangibility  renders  nugatory 
such  devices  of  conquest  as  an  indemnity,  tribute, 
exclusive  markets,  when  it  comes  to  a  question  of 
one  great  complex  industrial  community  attempt- 
ing to  profit  by  the  parasitic  exploitation  of  an- 
other, it  is  not  my  present  purpose  to  show.  But  it 
is  evident  we  have  here,  on  the  very  first  analysis, 
two  fundamentally  important  features  in  which  the 
early  pre-economic  statecraft  would  quickly  prove 
unworkable  in  our  day;  in  which  the  motives 
dictating  the  relationship  of  States  are  subject  to 
great  modification.  It  is  merely  silly  to  argue 
(and  yet  I  have  heard  it  argued  by  a  great  uni- 
versity professor)  that  there  is  no  change.    All 


104  Arms  and  Industry 

that  remains  in  doubt  is  the  degree  of  change  and 
its  direction :  whether  it  has  moved  sufficiently  far 
as  yet  to  reach  a  condition  which  makes  mihtary 
power  economically  futile  as  I  have  declared. 

It  is  important  that  we  should  realise  just  how 
that  relationship  has  changed:  what  has  been  the 
underlying  process  at  work:  what  has  been  the 
character  of  the  development. 

If  I  appear  to  wander  for  a  moment  from  my 
subject,  I  would  ask  you  to  remember  that  it 
is  impossible  to  explain  or  to  have  any  clear  idea  of 
the  real  significance  of  any  one  great  fact  in  the 
world,  without  paying  at  least  some  attention  to 
the  apparently  unrelated  facts  that  have  produced 
it. 

You  remember  the  nursery  story  of  the  plum- 
pudding  that  took  200  men  to  make,  and  yet,  when 
finally  produced,  was  just  an  ordinary  plum- 
pudding.  And  if  you  cannot  explain  one  plum- 
pudding  save  by  going  back  to  the  ploughman  who 
ploughed  the  ground,  and  the  sower  who  sowed  the 
seed  for  the  wheat,  and  the  ship  which  brought  the 
plums  to  England,  you  cannot  tell  the  story  of  so 
complex  a  subject  as  banking  and  the  relations  of 
States,  without  going  back  to  the  facts  which  at  the 
first  blush  do  not  appear  to  bear  very  directly  on  it. 
But  I  shall  not  digress  for  more  than  a  minute  or 
two. 

Now,  the  basic  fact  in  the  development  from  the 
Viking  to  our  own  day  is  the  division  of  labour, 
little  as  that  may  appear  on  the  surface.     If  there 


Credit  and  International  Relations  105 

were  no  division  of  labour,  organized  society  would 
never  have  grown  up,  because  there  would  have 
been  no  necessity  for  men's  co-operation:  a  man 
able  to  do  everything  necessary  for  his  life  himself 
would  be  a  really  independent  person,  not  caring  a 
rap  as  to  whether  his  neighbours  died  or  lived. 
Now  an  exactly  similar  development  is  shown 
in  the  growth  of  communities,  which  are  at  first 
independent  of  others,  and  then  by  the  division  of 
labour  come  to  be  dependent  upon  them.  If  in  the 
times  of  the  Danish  invasions,  England  could  by 
some  magic  have  killed  all  foreigners,  she  would 
presumably  have  been  better  off.  If  she  could  do 
the  same  thing  to-dav  half  her  population  would 
starve  to  death.  The  feudal  community,  which 
was  already  a  somewhat  complex  social  organiza- 
tion, necessitating  all  sorts  of  arts  and  crafts  and 
sciences,  produced  in  the  little  domain — the  estate 
of  the  feudal  lord — everything  that  it  needed,  and 
it  could  be,  and  was,  quite  independent  of  others; 
it  was  often  cut  off  by  impassable  roads  for  weeks 
and  months  at  a  time  from  all  similar  communities, 
and  did  not  suffer  in  the  least.  But  if  to-day  an 
English  county  is  cut  off  from  other  counties  by, 
for  instance,  a  general  railroad  strike,  its  whole  life 
is  paralyzed  in  twenty-four  hours.  This  means 
that  the  division  of  labour  has  rendered  it  depend- 
ent upon  others,  dependent  upon  the  work  of  the 
world  going  on  uninterruptedly. 

But  the  division  of  labour  produces  a  still  further 
factor,  perhaps  the  most  important  of  all:  the 


io6  Arms  and  Industry 

subsidence  of  physical  force — the  tendency  for 
such  to  be  completely  replaced,  especially  between 
commiuiities,  by  the  free  exchange  of  goods  and 
services.  It  is  the  development  from  compulsion 
to  freedom,  from  militarism  to  commerce,  the 
inevitable  drift  towards  the  final  eHmination  of  the 
military  factor. 

I  have  illustrated  the  whole  thing  elsewhere  by  a 
little  historical  sketch: 

When  I  kill  my  prisoner  (cannibalism  was  a 
very  common  characteristic  of  early  man),  it  is  in 
"human  nature"  to  keep  him  for  my  own  larder 
without  sharing  him.  It  is  the  extreme  form  of 
the  use  of  force,  the  extreme  form  of  human  indi- 
vidualism. But  putrefaction  sets  in  before  I  can 
consume  him  (it  is  as  well  to  recall  these  real 
difficulties  of  the  early  man,  because,  of  course, 
"human  nature  does  not  change"),  and  I  am  left 
without  food.  But  my  two  neighboiirs,  each  with 
his  butchered  prisoner,  are  in  like  case,  and  though 
I  could  quite  easily  defend  my  larder,  we  deem  it 
better  on  the  next  occasion  to  join  forces  and  kill 
one  prisoner  at  a  time.  I  share  mine  with  the 
other  two;  they  share  theirs  with  me.  There  is 
no  waste  through  putrefaction.  It  is  the  earliest 
form  of  the  surrender  of  the  use  of  force  in  favour 
of  co-operation — the  first  attenuation  of  the  ten- 
dency to  act  on  impulse.  But  when  the  three 
prisoners  are  consumed,  and  no  more  happen  to  be 
available,  it  strikes  us  that  on  the  whole  we  should 
have  done  better  to  make  them  catch  game  and 


Credit  and  International  Relations  107 

dig  roots  for  us.  The  next  prisoners  that  are 
caught  are  not  killed — a  further  diminution  of 
impulse  and  the  factor  of  physical  force — they 
are  only  enslaved,  and  the  pugnacity  which  in  the 
first  case  went  to  kill  them  is  now  diverted  to 
keeping  them  at  work.  But  the  pugnacity  is  so 
little  controlled  by  rationalism  that  the  slaves 
starve,  and  prove  incapable  of  useful  work.  They 
are  better  treated;  there  is  a  diminution  of  pug- 
nacity. They  become  sufficiently  manageable  for 
the  masters  themselves,  while  the  slaves  are 
digging  roots,  to  do  a  little  hunting.  The  pug- 
nacity recently  expended  on  the  slaves  is  redirected 
to  keeping  hostile  tribes  from  capturing  them — 
a  difficult  matter,  because  the  slaves  themselves 
show  a  disposition  to  try  a  change  of  mastership. 
They  are  bribed  into  good  behaviour  by  better 
treatment :  a  further  diminution  of  force,  a  further 
drift  towards  co-operation;  they  give  labour,  we 
give  food  and  protection.  As  the  tribes  enlarge, 
it  is  found  that  those  have  most  cohesion  where  the 
position  of  slaves  is  recognised  by  definite  rights 
and  privileges.  Slavery  becomes  serfdom  or 
villeiny.  The  lord  gives  land  and  protection,  the 
serf  labour  and  military  service:  a  further  drift 
from  force,  a  further  drift  towards  co-operation, 
exchange.  With  the  introduction  of  money  even 
the  form  of  force  disappears:  the  labourer  pays 
rent  and  the  lord  pays  his  soldiers.  It  is  free 
exchange  on  both  sides,  and  economic  force  has 
replaced  physical  force.     The  further  the   drift 


io8  Arms  and  Industry 

from  force  towards  simple  economic  interest  the 
better  the  result  for  the  effort  expended.  The 
Tartar  khan,  who  seizes  by  force  the  wealth  in  his 
State,  giving  no  adequate  return,  soon  has  none 
to  seize.  Men  will  not  work  to  create  what  they 
cannot  enjoy,  so  that,  finally,  the  khan  has  to  kill 
a  man  by  torture  in  order  to  obtain  a  sum  which 
is  the  thousandth  part  of  what  a  London  trades- 
man will  spend  to  secure  a  title  carrying  no  right 
to  the  exercise  of  force  from  a  Sovereign  who  has 
lost  all  right  to  the  use  or  exercise  of  physical  force, 
the  head  of  the  wealthiest  country  in  the  world, 
the  sources  of  whose  wealth  are  the  most  removed 
from  any  process  involving  the  exercise  of  physical 
force. 

While  this  process  is  going  on  inside  the  tribe,  or 
group,  or  nation,  force  and  hostility  between 
differing  tribes  or  nations  remain ;  but  not  undimin- 
ished. At  first  it  suffices  for  the  fuzzy  head  of  a 
rival  tribesman  to  appear  above  the  bushes  for 
primitive  man  to  want  to  hit  it.  He  is  a  foreigner: 
kill  him.  Later,  he  only  wants  to  kill  him  if  he  is 
at  war  with  his  tribe.  There  are  periods  of  peace : 
diminution  of  hostility.  In  the  first  conflicts  all  of 
the  other  tribe  are  killed — men,  women,  and  child- 
ren. Force  and  pugnacity  are  absolute.  But  the 
use  of  slaves,  both  as  labourers  and  as  concubines, 
attenuates  this;  there  is  a  diminution  of  force. 
The  women  of  the  hostile  tribe  bear  children  by 
the  conqueror :  there  is  a  diminution  of  pugnacity. 
At  the  next  raid  into  the  hostile  territory  it  is  found 


Credit  and  International  Relations  109 

that  there  is  nothing  to  take,  because  everything 
has  been  killed  or  carried  off.  So  on  later  raids  the 
conqueror  kills  the  chiefs  only  (a  further  diminu- 
tion of  pugnacity,  a  further  drift  from  mere 
impulse),  or  merely  dispossesses  them  of  their 
lands  which  he  divides  among  his  followers  (Nor- 
man Conquest  type).  We  have  already  passed 
the  stage  of  extermination.  The  conqueror  simply 
absorbs  the  conquered — or  the  conquered  absorbs 
the  conqueror,  whichever  you  like.  It  is  no  longer 
the  case  of  one  gobbling  up  the  other.  Neither 
is  gobbled.  In  the  next  stage  we  do  not  even  dis- 
possess the  chiefs — a  further  sacrifice  of  physical 
force — we  merely  impose  tribute.  But  the  con- 
quering nation  soon  finds  itself  in  the  position 
of  the  khan  in  his  own  State — the  more  he  squeezes 
the  less  he  gets,  until,  finally,  the  cost  of  get- 
ting the  money  by  military  means  exceeds  what 
is  obtained.  It  was  the  case  of  Spain  in  Spanish 
America — the  more  territory  she  "owned"  the 
poorer  she  became.  The  wise  conqueror,  then, 
finds  that  better  than  the  exaction  of  tribute  is  an 
exclusive  market — old  English  colonial  type.  But 
in  the  process  of  ensuring  exclusiveness  more  is  lost 
than  is  gained:  the  colonies  are  allowed  to  choose 
their  own  system — further  drift  from  the  use  of 
force,  further  drift  from  hostility  and  pugnacity. 
Final  result:  complete  abandonment  of  physical 
force,  co-operation  on  basis  of  mutual  profit  the 
only  relationship,  with  reference  not  merely  to 
colonies  which  have  become  in  fact  foreign  States, 


no  Arms  and  Industry 

but  also  to  States  foreign  in  name  as  well  as  in  fact. 
We  have  arrived  not  at  the  intensification  of  the 
struggle  between  men,  but  at  a  condition  of  vital 
dependence  upon  the  prosperity  of  foreigners. 
Could  England  by  some  magic  kill  all  foreigners, 
half  the  British  population  would  starve.  This  is 
not  a  condition  making  indefinitely  for  hostility 
to  foreigners;  still  less  is  it  a  condition  in  which 
such  hostility  finds  its  justification  in  any  real 
instinct  of  self-preservation  or  in  any  deep-seated 
biological  law.  With  each  new  intensification  of 
dependence  between  the  parts  of  the  organism 
must  go  that  psychological  development  which  has 
marked  every  stage  of  the  progress  in  the  past, 
from  the  day  that  we  killed  our  prisoner  in  order 
to  eat  him,  and  refused  to  share  him  with  our 
fellow,  to  the  day  that  the  telegraph  and  the  bank 
have  rendered  military  force  economically  futile. 
But  in  the  foregoing  sketches  I  have  purposely 
left  out  of  account  the  operation  of  one  factor 
which  is  precisely  the  one  most  apt  to  determine 
the  conduct  of  one  group  to  another,  and  without 
which  their  history  might  have  gone  on  without 
greatly  modifying  the  particular  relation  we  are 
now  discussing.  And  this  other  factor  which  I 
have  not  specifically  illustrated  here,  is  what  I  have 
called  Sensibility  or  Organic  Consciousness,  a  ca- 
pacity on  the  part  of  one  section  of  the  organism, 
nation  that  is,  to  measure  the  extent  of  its  depend- 
ence upon  the  rest,  and  to  measure  it  immediately. 
And  that  is  the  function  of  banking. 


Credit  and  International  Relations  iii 

Why  do  I  say  that  the  factors  already  indicated 
by  my  two  illustrations  would  not,  of  themselves, 
greatly  modify  the  relationship  of  States?  For 
this  reason :  our  conduct  is  determined,  not  by  the 
facts  of  the  world  which  affect  us,  but  only  by  so 
much  of  the  facts  as  we  can  realise — only  when  we 
see  the  relation  of  cause  and  effect  in  those  facts. 
"It  is  not,"  says  one  thinker,  "the  facts  which 
matter,  but  men's  opinions  about  facts,"  and 
although  what  I  have  described  does,  in  fact, 
describe  a  condition  of  real  interdependence,  the 
rivalry  of  States  and  the  growth  of  armaments 
might  but  for  this  further  factor,  with  which  I  am 
going  to  deal,  go  on  unchecked,  as  some  of  my 
critics  declare  it  will.  Those  critics  point  out  that 
there  was  a  certain  measure  of  interdependence 
between  States  in  the  ancient  world,  that  Rome 
had  an  elaborate  banking  system,  credit  was 
already  an  important  fact  in  the  world  during  the 
Napoleonic  struggle,  a  still  more  important  one 
when  Germany  devastated  France,  trying  to  crip- 
ple her  economically  as  part  of  a  State  policy. 
But  I  do  not  think  they  have  taken  into  consider- 
ation the  development  of  sensibility. 

Let  me  illustrate  by  actual  historical  cases. 

You  know  the  sort  of  policy  which  Spain  pur- 
sued in  South  America  during  three  centuries:  the 
continent  was  ruthlessly  bled,  mainly  for  its  gold. 
Not  merely  was  the  bulk  of  the  output  of  the  mines 
taken  by  the  Spanish  Government,  but  the  whole 
trade  of  those  vast  territories  was  controlled  by 


112  Arms  and  Industry 

Spain  for  the  benefit  of  certain  privileged  interests 
in  the  Mother  Country,  All  goods  had  to  be  taken 
to  certain  centres  and  there  shipped  in  a  certain 
way,  this  sometimes  involving  mule  transporta- 
tion thousands  of  miles  out  of  the  direct  route ;  and 
this  was  merely  a  detail.  Now,  the  point  is  this. 
That  policy  was  not  in  the  long-run  profitable  to 
Spain.  The  country  which  was  having  poured 
into  it  the  gold  of  half  a  universe  possessed  a 
population  which  was  one  of  the  poorest  in  Europe 
at  the  time.  Yet  Spanish  statesmen  went  on 
trying  to  apply  the  policy  which  was  ruining 
them,  trying  to  live  on  extorted  bullion,  and  for 
this  reason:  the  relation  between  the  policy  that 
they  were  applying  and  its  results  was  too  remote 
to  be  apparent;  the  reaction  of  cause  and  effect 
too  slow  to  be  observed.  Spain,  say,  passed  a 
law  which,  for  the  purpose  of  some  immediate  and 
special  gain,  spelt  absolute  ruin  to  a  vast  province; 
but  the  effect  of  that  ruin  did  not  make  itself  felt 
on  Spain  for  perhaps  a  generation,  and  there  were 
no  means  of  tracing  and  registering  the  effects 
over  so  long  a  period,  a  period  during  which  other 
factors  would  intervene  still  further  to  obscure 
cause  and  effect,  especially  at  a  time  when  the 
printed  book  was  practically  unknown.  It  was, 
therefore,  the  immediate,  the  a  priori,  which 
dominated  the  statesman's  course.  He  saw  that 
if  he  had  gold  in  his  pockets  he  could  buy  what  he 
wanted;  therefore  he  said,  "Let's  get  plenty  of 
gold  and  keep  it  from  leaving  the  country,  and 


Credit  and  International  Relations   113 

we  shall  be  all  right."  The  policy  which  was 
followed  during  those  three  centuries  was  the  mere 
extortion  of  bullion,  the  mercantile  theory  in  all 
its  crudity,  with  the  results  that  we  know.  The 
more  that  it  was  enforced  the  poorer  Spain  became, 
and  the  real  condition  of  interdependence,  the 
real  policy  which  should  dominate  one  country  in 
its  relations  to  another,  was  quite  unrealized. 

Now,  imagine  a  modem  Spain  responsible  for  the 
policy  of  a  modem  South  America,  developed  in- 
dustrially and  financially  to  a  high  degree.  We 
should  best  understand  the  relationship,  perhaps, 
if  we  could  imagine  the  American  Revolution  not 
having  taken  place,  and  England  still  "owning," 
in  the  meaningless  phrase  of  our  politics,  North 
America,  and  then  imagine  England  to-day  trying 
to  introduce  the  sort  of  policy  which  Spain  en- 
forced during  three  hundred  years  in  South  Amer- 
ica; enacting  in  Parliament,  for  instance,  that 
every  mine  and  oil-well  in  the  United  States  should 
pay  a  tribute  of  80  per  cent,  to  certain  monopo- 
lists in  London;  ordaining  that  all  cotton  coming 
from  Louisiana  and  destined  for  Lancashire  should 
first  be  taken  to  Winnipeg,  and  there  pay  a  special 
octroi  tax,  and  then  be  handled  by  certain  privi- 
leged firms,  shipped  in  certain  privileged  ships 
at  certain  fixed  rates,  and  arriving,  shall  we  say, 
at  Deal,  because  that  happened  to  be  the  seat  of 
another  monopolist,  be  brought  inland,  shall  we 
say,  to  the  town  of  Derby,  because  that  happened 
to  be  the  seat  of  a  business  having  influence  with 

8 


114  Arms  and  Industry 

the  Government,  and  from  Derby  shipped  to 
Manchester.  You  know,  of  course,  that  an  Act 
of  Parliament  of  that  kind,  merely  a  paraphrase 
of  the  sort  of  legislation  enforced  by  Spain  on 
South  America  during  three  hundred  years,  passed 
to-day  would  precipitate  a  financial  crisis,  first 
in  America,  but  immediately  after  in  England, 
which  would  involve  tens  of  thousands  of  business 
men  in  London,  having,  at  first  sight,  but  the 
remotest  connection  with  the  interests  involved, 
and  would  practically  annihilate  a  great  national 
business  in  Lancashire — on  which  thousands  of 
our  countrymen  depend  for  food.  No  man  would 
know  whether  he  would  find  his  bank  closed  in 
the  morning  or  not. 

And  this  is  the  point:  the  result  of  such  an  Act 
would  not  be  felt,  as  in  the  case  of  seventeenth- 
century  Spain,  in  twenty,  thirty,  or  fifty  years, 
but  would  be  felt  within  twenty  minutes  of  the 
time  that  its  provisions  became  known.  Think 
for  a  moment  of  the  investments  that  would  be 
rendered  valueless,  of  the  panic  with  which  they 
would  be  thrown  on  to  the  market,  of  the  chaos 
that  would  instantaneously  result,  and  you  know 
that  if  the  business  men  in  Lancashire  or  London 
possessed  any  influence  whatsoever  with  the 
British  Government,  all  their  influence  as  a  matter 
of  life  and  death  would  be  thrown  instantly  against 
that  Government,  so  as  to  ensure  the  rescinding  of 
such  an  impossible  law.  And  this  instantaneous 
effect  would  be  due  to  processes  which  banking 


Credit  and  International  Relations  115 

has  devised,  availing  itself  of  the  telegraph,  which 
enables  it,  or,  rather,  compels  it,  to  act  by  an- 
ticipation— before,  perhaps,  such  legislation  had 
actually  been  enforced  at  all. 

Now,  that  is  what  I  mean  by  sensibility  or 
organic  consciousness.  The  Stock  Exchange  and 
the  bank  rate  would  enable  the  organism  to  realise 
instantly  what  cruder  and  less  developed  organ- 
isms could  not  realise  at  all,  for  the  simple  reason 
that  they  possessed  no  nervous  system.  Banking 
provides  the  organism  with  its  sensory  nerves, 
which  means,  surely,  the  capacity  to  co-ordinate 
its  acts  and  perform  them  with  a  realisation  of 
their  effect.  And  those  sensory  nerves  are  the 
creation  of  our  own  time. 

That  is  why  I  think  that  a  whole  body  of  critic- 
ism directed  at  my  work  is  hardly  valid.  I  am 
told  that  the  interdependence  of  nations  is  an  old 
story;  that  these  factors  existed  in  the  past,  and 
that  they  did  not  deprive  military  force  of  its 
advantage,  or,  if  they  did,  that  fact  did  not  modify 
the  conduct  of  one  state  to  another.  But  the  de- 
termining factor,  which  is  the  immediate  reac- 
tion I  have  attempted  to  indicate,  the  only  thing 
which  will  really  affect  policy,  did  not  and  could 
not  exist.  The  intellectual  conception  of  these 
truths  may  be  old,  but  their  demonstration,  in  such 
a  way  as  to  affect  the  general  public  opinion  which 
dictates  the  policy  of  nations,  is  new.  And  the 
historical  demonstration  of  this  is  very  simple. 

The  interdependence  of  nations  was  first  argued 


ii6  Arms  and  Industry 

seriously  in  the  modem  world  by  Hume  in  1752. 
He  was  followed  by  Adam  Smith  in  a  work  of  far 
wider  reach,  thirty  years  later.  Yet  their  argu- 
ments had  evidently  not  affected  general  policy 
at  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century,  as  political 
discussion  in  England  at  the  time  of  the  Ameri- 
can Revolution,  and  on  the  Continent  at  the  time 
of  the  Napoleonic  wars,  showed  plainly  enough. 
Indeed,  the  practical,  vital  interdependence  of 
States  was  then  very  small,  as  the  results  of  Napo- 
leon's Continental  system  clearly  showed.  Even 
England,  industrially  the  most  developed  of  all, 
was  only  dependent  upon  foreigners  (except  occa- 
sionally in  years  of  great  scarcity)  for  luxuries, 
spices,  wines,  brandies,  silks — things  which,  while 
the  trade  in  them  was  considerable,  affected  only 
an  infinitesimal  part  of  the  population,  and  which 
were  not  much  affected  by  the  prosperity  or  other- 
wise of  the  neighbouring  peoples.  England  had 
not  yet  a  great  national  industry  which  depended 
upon  the  prosperity  of  her  neighbours — upon, 
that  is,  the  neighbours  being  able  to  send  her  food 
and  raw  material  in  abundant  quantities,  upon 
their  being  able  to  carry  on  their  industries.  This 
is  the  crucial  test  of  vital  interdependence,  and  it 
did  not  exist  in  any  country  in  the  world  at  the 
beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century.  England 
was  nearer  to  it  by  half  a  century  than  any  other 
country.  Indeed,  we  might  even  say  that  as  late 
as  the  last  quarter  of  the  nineteenth  century  there 
was  not  a  single  nation  in  the  world  outside  Britain 


Credit  and  International  Relations   117 

illustrating,  in  the  daily  needs  of  vast  masses  of  its 
population,  this  sort  of  vital  dependence  upon  its 
neighbours,  in  the  way,  for  instance,  that  Lanca- 
shire is  dependent  upon  American  cotton,  or  in  the 
way  upon  which  millions  of  our  people  are  upon 
foreign  food.  Consequently,  until  well  into  the 
nineteenth  century,  despite  the  intellectual  labours 
of  the  physiocrats,  the  old  idea  that  it  was  to  a 
nation's  interest  to  kill  the  industry  of  other 
nations  was  still  predominant.  But  by  the  third 
or  fourth  decade  of  the  nineteenth  century  a  real 
division  of  labour  had  set  in.  Steam  was  now 
playing  a  large  role  in  our  industry,  and  when  our 
cheap  coal  placed  us  in  an  advantageous  condition 
to  make  ready  use  of  that  force,  and  our  geo- 
graphical position  (corresponding  in  a  world, 
which  included  America,  precisely  to  the  position 
which  the  Venetian  Republics  held  when  the  world 
was  mainly  the  Mediterranean)  assisted  the  de- 
velopment of  our  industries,  foreign  trade  began 
to  render  cheap  food  essential  to  our  population. 
A  few  bad  harvests,  "the  rain  that  rained  away 
the  Corn  Laws,"  showed  our  dependence  upon 
foreign  food.  And  that  dependence  created  a 
revolution  in  fiscal  policy.  A  change  of  ideas 
which  all  the  splendid  arguments  of  the  physio- 
crats had  been  unable  to  effect  in  a  himdred  years, 
was  brought  about  by  the  absolute  demonstration 
of  our  need  for  foreign  food  in  five. 

And  this  change  synchronized  roughly  with  a 
change  in  our  whole  conception  of  the  relation- 


ii8  Arms  and  Industry 

ship  of  one  country  to  another — a  frank  abandon- 
ment of  the  old  relationship  of  exploitation  by  the 
Mother  Country  towards  the  Colonies;  the  com- 
plete acceptance  of  the  idea  of  self-government  for 
our  overseas  possessions.  A  moment's  reflection, 
indeed,  convinces  one  that  this  conception  of  the 
relationship  of  the  mother  community  to  great 
daughter  communities  is  the  direct  logical  out- 
come of  that  change  in  the  idea  of  the  relationship 
of  nations  which  the  physiocrats  had  taught,  and 
which  events  had  made  understandable. 

But  a  nation  is  not  a  person.  It  is  only  our 
careless  speech  which  leads  us  to  say  that  "Eng- 
land" is  in  favour  of  that,  or  "Germany"  of  this; 
forty  millions  or  sixty  millions  are  never  all  of  the 
same  mind.  And  although  the  defeat  of  the  old 
political  notion  seemed  pretty  complete  when 
Cobden  had  done  his  work,  there  were  very  many 
in  the  country  who  still  firmly  believed  that  what 
England  had  most  to  fear  was  the  growth  of  power 
and  prosperity  in  other  nations.  This  received  a 
curious  illustration  at  the  outbreak  of  the  North 
and  South  War  in  America.  The  growth  of  the 
American  Union  had  disturbed  the  dreams  of 
many  English  statesmen,  and  when,  at  the  out- 
break of  war,  it  appeared  that  that  Union  was 
about  to  break  up,  very  little  trouble  was  taken 
on  the  part  of  many  Englishmen  to  hide  their 
satisfaction  at  the  prospect.  The  very  first  result 
of  that  impending  break-up  of  a  foreign  State, 
however,  was  the  partial  ruin  of  a  great  industry, 


Credit  and  International  Relations  119 

and  the  starvation  of  tens  of  thousands  of  work- 
people, in  our  own  State.  The  essential  interde- 
pendence of  peoples  received  a  further  economic 
illustration,  which  was  another  nail  in  the  coffin 
of  the  old  ideas.  Note  the  development  in  politi- 
cal ideas.  In  i860  it  was  still  part  of  British 
policy — still  part  of  the  ideas  of  the  men  who 
governed  England — to  prevent  the  development  of 
the  United  States.  How  much  of  such  a  policy  is 
left  to-day?  Who  believes  that  a  wealthy  United 
States  is  a  danger  to  this  country? 

Let  us  get  back  to  the  Continent,  however, 
with  this  historical  sketch.  While  England's  pro- 
sperity had  yet  for  a  generation  been  bound  up 
vitally  with  the  work  of  other  nations — getting 
her  grain  and  meat  from  America,  her  wool  from 
Australia — the  Continental  nations,  without  an 
exception,  were  still,  despite  the  fact  that  several 
possessed  large  trades,  built  up  on  the  export  of 
liixuries  like  wine  and  silks,  roughly  self-sufficing 
and  self-supporting;  and  their  policy  showed  it. 

In  1870  Louis  Napoleon  saw  -with  dismay  the 
possibility  of  a  German  Union,  and  it  had  on  him 
pretty  much  the  same  effect  in  1870  as  the  spectre 
of  a  great  American  Union  had  had  on  English 
statesmen  in  i860;  and  acting  on  the  old  idea  that 
the  power  of  a  neighbour  must  necessarily  be  used 
against  you  and  his  prosperity  be  inimical  to  your 
own  (in  one  sense  he  was  right,  because  that 
was  precisely  the  motive  animating  all  nations, 
except  England,  which  was  just  beginning  to  learn 


120  Arms  and  Industry 

the  real  lesson),  he  directed  his  policy  towards 
crushing  that  power  and  crippling  that  prosperity 
— that  is  to  say,  he  encouraged  a  line  of  policy 
which  tended  to  render  the  consolidation  of  the 
German  States  difficult  and  incomplete.  Bis- 
marck challenged  the  interference  successfully,  and 
used  his  force  by  deliberately  trying  to  crush 
France,  not  merely  in  a  political,  but  in  an  eco- 
nomic sense.  It  was  his  avowed  intention  so  to 
adjust  things  that  never  again  should  France  be 
an  economic  Power  in  Europe.  There  was  no 
economic  relationship  between  the  two  peoples 
to  pull  him  up  smartly  in  the  matter;  no  German 
Lancashire  to  starve  because  French  cotton- 
fields  were  overrun  with  soldiers.  German  in- 
dustry did  not  depend  either  upon  French  wheat 
or  French  money.  Well,  note  what  follows. 
Germany  settled  down  to  consolidate  her  political 
and  economic  position,  gave  herself  over  to  intense 
industry  and  commercial  development,  which 
followed  pretty  much  the  same  lines  that  similar 
development  in  England  had  followed  in  the  pre- 
ceding generation.  And  after  forty  years  of  this 
economic  development  came  another  Franco- 
German  conflict;  once  more  the  armies  were 
ranged  face  to  face,  and  a  German  statesman, 
frankly  basing  his  policy  on  the  Bismarckian 
philosophy,  stood  once  more  in  Bismarck's  place, 
with  these  great  advantages,  however,  over  his 
predecessor:  where  Bismarck  had  represented  a 
Germany  of  forty  millions  confronting  a  France 


Credit  and  International  Relations   121 

of  the  same  number,  a  Germany,  moreover,  which 
was  not  yet  politically  united,  Herr  von  Kiderlen 
Waechter  represented  a  Germany  of  sixty-five  mil- 
lions as  against  a  France  of  thirty-eight  millions, 
a  Germany  which  had  had  forty  years  of  poli- 
tical union  and  severe  discipline,  and  a  Germany 
which  had  grown  enormously,  inconceivably,  while 
France  had  stood  still.  But  there  was  no  war. 
Where  Bismarck  could  have  bled  France  white 
with  a  certain  satisfaction,  without  any  immediate 
damage  being  involved  to  his  own  coimtry,  Herr 
von  Kiderlen  Waechter  (I  am  told  to  his  surprise) 
learned  that  to  bleed  white  this  relatively  feeble 
France  of  191 1  would  be  to  plunge  this  great  and 
powerful  Germany  into  the  direst  economic  dis- 
tress. What  American  cotton  had  been  to  Lan- 
cashire in  1865,  French  money,  and  all  that  it 
directly  and  indirectly  represents,  was  to  German 
industry  in  191 1.  He  learned,  still  more  to  his 
surprise  apparently,  that  of  the  twenty  million 
souls  added  to  German  population  since  1870, 
nearly  all  were  dependent  upon  foreign  food,  and 
gained  their  livelihood  from  industries  dependent 
to  a  large  extent  upon  foreign  capital,  most  of  it 
French  and  English  capital,  and  that,  if  by  some 
magic  the  iiltimate  Bismarckian  dream  of  wiping 
France  economically  from  the  map  of  Europe 
could  be  realised,  he  would  be  prevented,  and, 
indeed,  was  prevented,  from  carrying  it  out,  not 
by  any  consideration  for  French  welfare,  but  by 
the  very  pressing  necessities  of  German  industry, 


122  Arms  and  Industry 

and  by  the  direct  influence  of  German  financiers 
and  German  business  men.  The  very  threat  of  it 
was  enough.  Did  it  leak  out  that  German  de- 
mands had  become  unacceptable,  there  was  a  slump 
on  the  Berlin  Bourse,  and  some  German  industrial 
bank  closed  its  doors ;  did  the  German  jingoes  talk 
of  the  imminence  of  war,  the  bank  rate  moved  up 
a  point,  and  some  considerable  German  house 
went  into  insolvency.  I  could  trace  for  you,  if 
I  had  the  time,  a  really  humorous  chart  establish- 
ing the  direct  relationship  between  the  "vigour" 
of  German  foreign  policy  and  the  figures  of  German 
commercial  insolvency. 

The  condition  is  indeed  well  described  by  our 
own  Gonsul-General  in  Germany — Sir  Francis 
Oppenheimer — who  points  out  in  his  last  report 
that  the  close  alliance  between  the  banks  and  the 
industries  in  Germany  creates  a  situation  which — 
I  use  his  very  words — "must  in  times  of  inter- 
national crisis  result  in  general  collapse."  From 
numberless  similar  comments  I  take  the  following 
from  the  Bourse  Gazette  of  Berlin : 

"  The  policy  which  the  Government  has  been  pur- 
suing since  July  i  has  inflicted  on  our  commerce  and 
our  industry  losses  almost  as  great  as  they  would  have 
suffered  from  an  unsuccessful  war." 

Such  an  opinion  may  be  exaggerated ;  that  is  not 
the  point.  The  point  is  that  financial  opinion  is 
already  feeling  this  effect  of  policy.     What  I  am 


Credit  and  International  Relations   123 

saying  is  this:  These  nerves  about  which  I  have 
talked  were  already  acting  on  the  organism,  al- 
ready beginning  to  affect  public  opinion,  which  in 
its  turn  would  be  bound,  sooner  or  later,  to  affect 
the  Government.  And,  indeed,  we  have  complete 
evidence  that  such  opinion,  stirred  by  these  finan- 
cial nerves,  did  very  rapidly  influence  the  policy 
of  the  Government.  Here  is  an  incident  typical 
of  many  similar  things  which  were  going  on  at  the 
time,  told  in  a  Times  telegram  from  Berlin. 

We  were  in  the  midst  of  a  pessimistic  period, 
and  the  German  Government  had  with  evident 
intent  been  assiduously  issuing  pessimistic  notes. 
The  Times  telegram  was  as  follows : 

"  One  consequence  of  the  disquieting  semi-official 
statements  was  that  a  considerable  time  before  the 
opening  of  the  Bourse  numerous  selling  orders  began 
to  arrive,  and  there  seemed  every  prospect  of  another 
heavy  fall  in  prices.  The  principal  banking  institu- 
tions, however,  put  themselves  immediately  in  com- 
munication with  the  Foreign  Office,  and  at  an  early 
hour  several  of  the  representatives  of  the  great  banks, 
including,  it  is  stated,  Herr  von  Helfferich,  Director 
of  the  Deutsche  Bank,  Herr  Carl  Furstenburg,  Direc- 
tor of  the  Berlin  Handelsgesellschaft,  and  the  repre- 
sentatives of  the  National  Bank  and  the  house  of 
Bleichroeder,  were  received  at  the  Foreign  Office  by 
Herr  Zimmerman,  the  Under-Secretary  of  State  for 
Foreign  Affairs,  who,  in  reply  to  inquiries,  made 
reassuring  statements  of  the  most  positive  kind  with 
regard  to  the  situation.     Encouraged  by  these  assur- 


124  Arms  and  Industry 

ances,  the  banks  lent  their  support,  with  the  result 
that  prices  were  maintained  at  a  satisfactory  level 
throughout  the  day." 

Could  we  have  clearer  evidence  that  Germany 
had  arrived  at  a  time  when  its  Government  was 
modifying  its  policy  of  aggression  in  response  to 
those  new  economic  needs  that  had  come  to  make 
Germany  dependent  upon  the  financial  security 
of  its  neighbours? 

How  far  are  we  removed  from  the  glorious  days 
when  Bismarck  could  glibly  talk  of  bleeding  France 
white  with  the  satisfactory  assurance  that  not  a 
German  would  be  the  poorer  in  consequence,  and 
that,  on  the  contrary,  the  German  State  would 
immensely  gain  thereby?  This  illustrates  the 
social  Law  of  Acceleration  which  I  have  attempted 
to  explain  elsewhere :  Bismarck  was  nearer  to  being 
able  to  apply  the  methods  of  Attila,  some  fifteen 
hundred  years  removed  from  him,  than  we  are  to 
being  able  to  apply  the  methods  of  Bismarck,  from 
whom  only  forty  years  separate  us. 

I  know  what  you  will  say :  That  it  was  not  these 
considerations  which  prevented  war,  but  the  fact 
that  Germany,  in  addition  to  the  French  Army, 
had  also  to  face  the  British  Navy.  But  I  beg  you 
to  remember  that  there  have  been  two  Morocco 
incidents  in  the  last  ten  years,  and  on  the  first 
occasion  the  English  Navy  did  not  stand  in  any 
special  sense  behind  France;  and  if  you  will  ex- 
amine the  German  financial  press  of  that  period, 


Credit  and  International  Relations  125 

you  will  find  that  precisely  the  same  order  of 
economic  and  commercial  considerations  which 
played  so  great  a  weight  in  dictating  the  lines  of 
general  policy  in  191 1  played  also  a  predominant, 
though  not  so  noticeable  a  role  in  dictating  German 
policy  in  1905.  "There  can  be  no  doubt,"  says 
one  credible  French  authority,  "that  war  was 
prevented  by  reason  of  Germany's  industrial 
dependence  upon  international  credit."  And  the 
same  authority  adds  this  significant  note:  "The 
influence  of  this  international  economic  solidarity 
is  increasing,  despite  ourselves.  It  has  not  re- 
sulted from  conscious  action  on  the  part  of  any 
of  us,  and  it  certainly  cannot  be  arrested  by  any 
conscious  action  on  our  part." 

I  do  not  say  that  the  political  and  military 
factors,  the  British  Navy  and  the  rest  of  it,  did 
not  count.  Fifty  equally  well-informed  persons 
will  give  fifty  divergent  opinions  as  to  the  respect- 
ive weight  of  the  factors  which  have  determined 
this  or  that  action  in  the  case  of  a  Government.  A 
man  who  has  lived  all  his  life  at  the  very  centre  of 
things  in  Germany,  and  who  is  in  touch,  not  only 
with  the  commercial,  financial,  and  journalistic 
worlds,  but  with  the  Court  and  with  political 
subjects,  has  told  me  this: 

"  I  have  watched  many  political  developments  and 
intrigues,  and  have  shared  in  many;  perhaps  I  have 
seen  as  much  of  the  inside  of  German  policy  as  any 
man,  and  you  ask  me  whether  the  future  holds  war  or 


126  Arms  and  Industry 

peace,  and  I  have  to  tell  you  that  I  do  not  know.  You 
ask  me  whether  Germany  is  in  favour  of  peace,  and 
again  I  have  to  say  I  do  not  know.  The  Emperor 
does  not  know  whether  Germany  favours  war  or 
peace,  though  he  personally  most  certainly  would 
favour  peace;  but  he  cannot  tell  whether  his  efforts 
will  prevail." 

And  yet  you  get  people  who  talk  of  a  country — 
say  Germany — as  though  its  acts  were  the  outcome 
of  a  fixed  opinion,  like  that  formed  by  an  individual 
having  definitely  made  up  its  mind  to  do  this  or 
to  do  that,  not  the  expression  of  a  body  of  opinion, 
subject  to  modification  by  all  sorts  of  forces,  a 
thing  perpetually  in  a  state  of  flux.  There  is  not 
a  Government  in  Europe  that  has  not  radically 
changed  its  views  on  policy  in  ten  years.  In 
1900  France  was  in  deadly  opposition  to  England. 
English  opinion  would  hear  nothing  good  of 
France  and  nothing  bad  of  Germany.  Fifteen 
years  since  Anglophobia  was  one  of  the  dominating 
factors  in  American  foreign  policy.  And  you  may 
take  the  wildest  expression  of  Anglophobia  to  be 
found  in  Germany  to-day,  and  I  will  duplicate  it 
by  a  similar  outburst  from  some  prominent  Ameri- 
can of  that  period.  Again,  we  are  told  that  the 
German  Government  does  not  care  a  rap  about 
what  the  financial  world  and  the  banks  may  think, 
and  how  they  may  suffer  from  its  policy.  Well, 
I  will  say  nothing  of  the  fact  that  all  the  evidence 
goes  against  this,  and  that  the  history  I  have  just 


Credit  and  International  Relations  127 

recounted  is  a  direct  denial  of  it.  But  surely  we 
must  realize  that  in  the  end  the  Government  is  the 
world  of  affairs,  in  the  sense  that  the  general  trend 
of  its  policy  must  sooner  or  later  be  determined  by 
the  interests  and  the  necessities  of  the  mass  of 
the  people  from  which  it  derives  its  power,  its 
money,  its  general  capacity  to  act  with  efficiency 
and  precision.  A  modem  war,  of  all  things,  in- 
volves that  capacity  which  a  Government  must  de- 
rive from  acting  in  the  long-run  in  connection  with 
the  great  currents,  economic  and  moral,  of  its  time 
and  people.  It  is  not  possible  for  any  great  State 
taking  an  active  part  in  the  life  of  the  world  to 
do  otherwise.  The  State  simply  is  powerless  be- 
fore these  ciirrents.*  Not  only  has  the  work  of 
the  German  people  imintentionally  brought  to 
nought  the  carefully  laid  plans  of  the  statesman, 
but  modem  Germany  would  have  been  impossible 
unless  those  plans  had  miscarried.  It  was  Bis- 
marck's declared  policy  from  first  to  last  to  check, 
by  every  possible  means,  the  economic  develop- 
ment of  France.     She  was  to  be  blotted  out  as  an 

*This  address  was  delivered  in  January,  191 2,  and  on  July  11, 
1913,  the  British  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  (Mr.  Lloyd 
George)  speaking  at  the  Mansion  House  said:  "Two  years  ago 
the  financial  interests  of  the  Continent,  I  believe,  stopped  a  war. 
And  I  believe  that  it  is  only  these  great  financial  interests  that 
will  be  able  effectually  to  intervene  in  order  to  arrest  this  terrible 
growth  (of  armaments).  .  .  .  There  is  one  advantage  they  have 
got.  Finance  is  international:  the  present  condition  of  things 
proves  it.  If  there  is  trouble  in  one  country  the  finance  of  the 
next  is  affected.  There  is  war  in  the  East  and  the  West  bleeds. 
Banks  fall  in  the  West  and  the  East  trembles. " 


128  Arms  and  Industry 

economic  factor  in  Europe.  Well,  if  she  had  been, 
the  wonderful  development  of  German  commerce 
in  the  last  twenty  years  would  have  been 
impossible. 

That  commerce  is  largely  with  such  coimtries  as 
South  America,  the  Near  East,  Russia;  and  the 
recent  development  of  those  countries,  which 
makes  the  large  German  trade  possible,  is  due 
mainly  to  French  and  English  capital.  If  German 
statesmen  had  really  been  able  to  wipe  out  Ger- 
many's rivals,  this  development  of  German  trade 
would  not  have  taken  place. 

And  all  the  efforts  of  French  statesmen  to  con- 
trol these  currents  have,  on  their  side,  been  just 
as  futile.  French  policy  has  aimed  at  fortifying 
Russia  to  counterbalance  Germany,  and,  with  that 
purpose,  an  alliance  with  Russia  was  formed, 
an  integral  part  of  the  understanding  being  that  a 
portion  of  the  immense  free  capital  of  France 
should  be  available  for  Russia.  The  capital  was 
given,  with  the  result  that  German  trade  in  Russia, 
thanks  to  development  due  in  no  small  measure 
to  this  French  capital,  has  gone  up  from  about  15 
to  45  per  cent.,  and  Germany  may  be  said  to-day 
commercially  to  dominate  Russia.  It  is  one  of  the 
great  outlets  for  German  industrial  and  commer- 
cial activity — thanks  to  the  very  policy  which 
was  aimed  against  Germany. 

And  note  this:  that  with  the  freedom  of  com- 
munication in  every  sense  that  now  exists  in  the 
world,  it  has  become  a  material  impossibility  to 


Credit  and  International  Relations   129 

prevent  French  money  from  aiding  German  trade 
in  one  form  or  another.  So  long  as  France,  with  a 
stationary  population  and  large  amounts  of  free 
capital,  desires  interest  on  her  money;  so  long  as 
the  French  father  desires  to  give  his  daughter  a 
dot;  so  long,  in  other  words,  as  France  achieves 
in  some  measure  those  aims  for  which  mainly  the 
State  exists  at  all,  her  money  will  go  to  the  help 
of  German  trade. 

And  note  also  how  the  division  of  labour  which 
sets  up,  as  I  have  explained,  the  mutual  depend- 
ence of  nations  the  one  upon  the  other  is  not 
merely  intensified,  but  actually  created,  by  the 
force  of  credit.  We  know  that  a  difference  of  a 
few  pence  per  ton  in  the  cost  of  coal,  and  a  few 
shillings  in  the  cost  of  wheat,  is  sufficient  to  make 
one  country  mainly  a  coal-producing  country,  and 
another  mainly  a  wheat-producing  country,  and 
that  the  establishment  of  that  difference  of  a  few 
pence  or  a  few  shillings  would  not  have  been 
possible  except  for  the  services  which  modern 
credit  is  able  to  render  to  the  world  of  commerce; 
but  there  is  a  form  of  division  of  labour — and  a 
form  which  is  most  important  in  the  circumstances 
we  are  considering — directly  due  to  the  devices  of 
banking.  Before  1870  France  had  as  large  a 
population  as  she  has  to-day,  and  she  was,  re- 
latively to  other  countries  in  Europe,  already  a 
wealthy  and  saving  one.  Yet  the  amount  of 
foreign  investments  made  every  year  under  the 
Empire  was  not  one-tenth  of  the  amount  which  is 


130  Arms  and  Industry 

made  to-day  by  a  smaller  population.*  It  is  a 
demonstration  of  how  the  financial  factor  in  the 
affairs  of  the  world  is  growing,  not  proportionately 
to  population,  but  absolutely.  Multitudinous 
factors  since  the  war — of  which  the  extermination 
by  war  of  the  bold  and  adventurous  type  of  man  is 
certainly  one — have  contributed  to  make  France 
a  nation  of  very  small  families,  cautiously  saving 
for  the  future,  endowing  their  one  son  or  their  one 
daughter  with  capital  or  a  dot,  so  that  an  immense 
amount  of  money  is  liberated  for  investment 
abroad;  whereas  in  the  case  of  Germany  a  new 
population  of  twenty  millions  have  had  to  be 
started  in  the  world,  and  the  capital  thus  called 
for  has  more  than  absorbed  all  that  Germany 
could  save.  But  it  is  the  devices  of  banking  which 
enable  the  two  countries  to  divide  their  labour 
according  to  their  characteristics,  one  being  a 
maker  of  capital,  and  the  other  a  user  of  capital. 
And  because  you  have  created  this  division  of 
labour  by  virtue  of  the  work  of  banking,  you  have 
also  created  that  condition  of  dependence  of  the 
one  upon  the  other  which  I  have  tried  to  indicate 
at  the  beginning  of  this  address.  The  very  stag- 
nation of  France  which  set  free  this  capital  is 
precisely  the  factor  which  makes  it  impossible  for 
Germany  to  crush  her. 

Now,  I  want  you  to  recall  for  a  moment  the 

*  See  the  very  striking  figures  given  in  this  connection  in  "  Le 
R61e  des  EtabUssements  de  Credit  en  France"  (published  by  La 
Revue  Politique  et  Parliamentaire,  Paris). 


Credit  and  International  Relations  131 

propositions  with  which  I  started  this  paper, 
namely,  that  the  relations  of  States  are  rapidly 
modifying  in  obedience  to  changing  conditions — 
the  greater  division  of  labour  set  up  by  quicker 
communications;  that  this  intensified  division  of 
labour  sets  up  a  condition  of  necessary  interde- 
pendence between  those  who  share  the  labour; 
that  this  condition  of  interdependence  in  its  turn 
involves  a  necessary  subsidence  of  the  factor  of 
physical  force  between  them;  that  this  subsidence 
of  physical  force  not  only  weakens  necessarily  the 
role  of  political  control,  but  the  very  complexity 
of  the  division  of  labour  tends  to  set  up  co-opera- 
tion in  groups  which  cut  right  athwart  political 
frontiers,  so  that  the  political  no  longer  limits  or 
coincides  with  the  economic  frontier;  and  that, 
finally,  partly  as  the  cumulative  effect  of  all  these 
factors,  and  partly  as  the  direct  effect  of  devices 
born  of  the  necessity  of  co-ordinating  such  factors, 
you  get  what  I  may  term  telegraphic  financial 
reaction — a  condition  of  sensibility  by  which  the 
organism  as  a  whole  becomes  quickly  conscious 
of  any  damage  to  a  part ;  that  the  matter  may  be 
summarised  in  the  statement  that  military  force 
is  more  and  more  failing  in  its  effect,  and  must 
finally  become — I  think  it  has  already  become — 
economically  futile.  Just  remember  those  pro- 
positions, and  then  recall  the  facts  of  the  historical 
sketch  which  I  have  just  given  you,  and  ask  yom*- 
self  whether  they  are  not  confirmed  in  every  single 
detail. 


132  Arms  and  Industry 

At  the  beginning  of  that  story  we  find  a  maraud- 
ing State  inflicting  all  the  damage  that  physical 
force  can  inflict  and  suffering  itself  little  harm.  At 
the  end  of  the  story  we  get  a  condition  in  which  a 
State  cannot  inflict  damage  anything  like  as  great 
without  such  damage  reacting  disastrously  on  the 
State  inflicting  it.  At  the  beginning  we  have  an 
England  which  could  have  seen  all  its  political 
rivals  annihilated  without  damage;  at  the  end  we 
have  an  England  in  which  such  a  thing  would  spell 
starvation  to  its  popiilation.  At  the  beginning,  a 
Power  like  Spain,  able  to  exercise  military  force 
as  fantastically  as  it  pleased,  to  bleed  to  its  ap- 
parent profit  another  people ;  at  the  end  a  condition 
in  which  the  use  of  military  force  in  any  such  way 
would  be  fatal  to  the  prosperity  of  the  country  so 
using  it.  At  the  beginning,  interdependence  so 
slow  of  growth  that  two  thousand  years  hardly 
shows  a  development  therein;  at  the  end  the  in- 
terdependence growing  so  rapidly  and  becom- 
ing so  sensitive  that,  having  no  effect  on  the 
policy  of  a  great  Continental  State  in  the  third 
quarter  of  the  nineteenth  century,  it  dominates 
that  policy  in  the  first  decade  of  the  twentieth. 
However  you  may  test  the  general  propositions  I 
have  laid  down  by  the  history  of  human  devel- 
opment, you  will  find  that  they  stand  that  test 
absolutely. 

They  stand  this  test  because  the  condition 
which  I  have  attempted  to  indicate  is  not  merely 
a  condition  of  the  relationship  of  one  nation  to 


Credit  and  International  Relations  133 

another,  it  is  the  essential  condition  of  the  rela- 
tionship of  all  men  to  all  other  men  individually. 
The  forces  which  I  have  been  trying  to  illustrate 
are  the  forces  which  have  made  possible  organised 
society. 

And  just  one  word  as  to  the  immediate  practical 
outcome. 

Need  I  say  that  I  do  not  expect  universal  peace 
to  dawn  a  week  next  Tuesday  morning,  nor  do  I 
believe  that  we  should  turn  our  "Dreadnoughts" 
into  colliers,  disband  our  army,  and  invite  the 
foreigners  to  come  and  walk  over  us.  But  I  do 
believe  that  a  more  thorough  examination  of  the 
principles  I  have  hinted  at  here  will  affect  the 
attitude  of  the  foreigner  to  us  and  ours  to  him,  and 
that  in  the  direction  of  these  principles  will  be 
found  finally  a  way  out  of  the  absurd  impasse 
into  which  sheer  military  rivalry,  tempered  in  no 
way  by  rationalism,  has  landed  us;  that  the  more 
thorough  discussion  of  the  facts  which  I  have 
pointed  to  here  is  bound  to  lead  to  a  modification 
of  that  public  opinion  which  sets  up  this  rivalry 
from  which  we  all  suffer  so  much.  And  our 
progress  towards  that  will  be  measured  above  all 
by  the  rapidity  with  which  our  intelligence  seizes 
the  facts  of  the  change  here  operating.  It  cannot 
be  too  often  repeated  that  the  determining  factor 
in  progress  is  more  and  more  this  conscious  adap- 
tation of  the  organism  to  its  environment,  which 
means,  in  the  case  of  society,  human  intelligence 
and  the  extent  to  which  that  force  guides  instead 


134  Arms  and  Industry 

of  allowing  itself  to  be  overruled  by  prejudice, 
temper,  and  blind  passion. 

There  are  those  of  course  who  will  tell  you  that 
the  whole  thing  is  very  regrettable;  that  it  is  sor- 
did that  the  conduct  of  men  or  nations  should  be 
guided  by  what  they  are  pleased  to  call  money 
considerations.  Well,  it  all  depends  on  what  you 
mean  by  money.  You  of  course  realise  that 
banking  and  credit  are  not  things  that  can  exist 
apart  from  commerce  as  a  whole.  Credit  devices 
(to  return  to  an  earlier  illustration)  are  the  sensory 
nerves  of  the  economic  organisation,  and  nerves 
cannot  exist  independently  from  the  organism  of 
which  they  are  a  part ;  they  cannot  live  suspended 
in  air.  They  are  important  because  their  condi- 
tion— of  pain  or  satisfaction — vindicates  an  ill  or 
well  working  body  as  the  case  may  be.  Banking 
operations  are  the  co-ordinated  expression  of  all 
industrial  and  commercial  operations  and  cannot 
exist  apart  from  them.  Your  bill  of  exchange  is 
not  merely  a  piece  of  paper ;  it  represents  ultimately 
a  cargo  of  wheat,  and  the  cargo  of  wheat  is  not 
merely  merchandise  but  bread,  and  bread  is  not 
merely  dead  matter,  because  it  is  human  food, 
it  connotes  human  energy  and  life,  "the  marvel- 
lous chemistry  by  which  a  loaf  of  bread  is  changed 
into  the  melody  of  Liszt "  or  the  laughter  of  a  child. 

Whilst  the  statesman,  the  diplomat,  the  dilet- 
tante of  high  politics,  imagining  to  themselves 
some  dream  world  where  nations  are  wild  warring 
things  living  upon  one  another,  to  be  thrown  at 


Credit  and  International  Relations  135 

one  another  in  some  grand  series  of  Armaged- 
dons,  go  on  repeating  the  aphorisms  of  Aristotle, 
Chariemagne,  or  MachiavelH,  the  silent  forces 
of  the  great  business  which  this  Institute  embodies 
have  been  defeating  their  best-laid  plans,  reducing 
their  machinations  to  nought,  producing  the  very- 
opposite  result  to  that  attempted.  Where  they 
thought  to  destroy  you  have  built  up,  where  they 
thought  to  build  up  you  have  destroyed,  where 
they  thought  to  push  nations  apart  you  have 
bound  them  together  with  links  of  steel. 

Genuine  banking  must  be  built  up  on  a  basis  of 
the  prosperity  of  the  community  as  a  whole.  The 
condition  by  which  one  group  can  make  huge 
profits  by  the  disasters  of  another,  unhealthy 
speculation,  booms,  swindles,  are  deadly  enemies 
of  the  sort  of  banking  which  this  Institute  re- 
presents. It  stands,  and  must  stand,  in  close 
alliance  with  sound  trading,  the  prosperity  of  the 
people  as  a  whole.  I  was  discussing  this  matter 
once  with  a  great  French  banker  and  his  friends, 
and  one  of  them  said  to  me :  "  I  hope  you  are  wrong 
because  if  not  it  seems  to  me  that  the  banker  will 
be  our  master.  It  is  the  golden  age  of  the  Money 
Power  with  a  vengeance."  My  friend  took  this 
critic  by  the  sleeve  and  led  him  to  the  window, 
Outside  was  a  queue  of  people  waiting  to  sub- 
scribe to  a  city  loan  which  had  just  then  been 
floated  in  Paris.  "You  see  that  line  of  people?" 
the  banker  said.  "Well,  if  that  line  is  not  there, 
the  Money  Power  has  no  power.     The  money  with 


136  Arms  and  Industry 

which  we  carry  on  our  operations  and  make  our 
profits  and  wield  our  'power'  as  you  call  it,  is  the 
money  of  the  public,  and  the  first  condition  of  our 
prosperity  is  that  the  public  must  have  money, 
that  they  shall  carry  on  their  trade  actively  and 
busily,  create  and  consume,  buy  and  sell,  both  well 
and  wisely.  Our  prosperity  at  least  is  based  on 
the  general  well-being,  which  is  not  the  case  with 
some  callings  that  have  perhaps  greater  honour." 

But  what  does  general  prosperity  imply?  It 
implies  all  those  efforts  by  which  the  men,  women, 
and  children  of  the  world  are  fed  and  clothed  and 
housed  and  warmed,  educated  in  youth,  cared  for 
in  old  age  and  sickness.  If  instead  of  misusing  a 
word  to  which  ancient  and  irrational  prejudice 
attaches,  one  uses  a  little  imagination  and  sees 
what  money  and  banking  really  represent,  how 
different  an  aspect  does  the  whole  thing  assume! 

I  have  had  to  meet  an  immense  deal  of  bitter 
criticism  based  on  the  idea  that  I  am  hailing  the 
stockbroker  and  the  banks  as  the  saviours  of 
society ;  that  this  is  a  money-lender's  gospel.  One 
critic  tells  me  that  my  doctrines  are  "grossly 
offensive  to  men  of  European  tradition" — the 
appeal  to  human  avarice  against  the  profession  of 
arms. 

I  wanted  to  know  which  European  tradition. 
There  was  a  very  old  and  very  obstinate  European 
tradition  that  men  who  differed  from  you  in  ideas — 
especially  in  ideas  that  mattered — should  not  be 
listened  to  and  considered  but  destroyed,  burned, 


Credit  and  International  Relations   137 

tortured,  and  imprisoned.  Perhaps  it  has  been 
one  of  the  most  pregnant  traditions — pregnant 
of  evil  that  is — that  has  ever  dominated  the 
European  mind,  and  coloured  European  public 
policy.  With  it  quite  naturally  and  logically  went 
a  hostility  to  the  recognition  of  the  laws  of  natural 
phenomena  which,  had  not  the  tradition  in  ques- 
tion been  broken,  would  have  rendered  impossible 
most  of  that  development  of  human  society  which 
I  have  indicated  in  this  paper;  the  division  of 
labour,  which  implies  the  organisation  and  sys- 
tematization  of  men's  tasks — science  in  its  widest 
sense — woiild  not  have  taken  place,  and  the  human 
solidarity,  the  breaking-down  of  political,  racial, 
and  religious  barriers,  with  the  intenser  co-opera- 
tion which  the  whole  thing  demands,  would  not 
have  grown  up.  The  larger  comradeship  which 
that  co-operation  implies  would  have  been  im- 
possible. 

But  perhaps  of  all  the  evils  which  pernicious 
traditions  have  bequeathed — the  prohibition  of 
interest  which  would  have  made  commerce 
impossible,  that  ban  upon  research  and  science 
which  would  have  made  invention  impossible,  that 
attempt  to  control  ideas  by  law  and  force  which 
would  have  made  human  society  impossible — of  all 
these  evils  perhaps  one  of  the  most  vicious  is  this: 
that  we  have  been  taught  to  believe  there  is  some 
necessary  contradiction  between  interest  and 
moraHty,  that  high  ideals  must  be  in  conflict  with 
material  advantage,  that  the  higher  welfare  of  the 


138  Arms  and  Industry 

race  is  in  some  wonderful  way  founded  upon  a 
sacrifice  of  its  material  welfare,  that  the  activities 
by  which  the  world  lives,  those  by  which  society 
has  been  organised,  are  not  those  with  which  the 
highest  ideals  of  man  can  be  in  any  way  concerned, 
those  round  which  the  larger  common  policy  of 
men  should  be  grouped. 

I  have  read  somewhere,  I  think  it  was  in  one  of 
Mr.  Hartley  Withers's  books,  of  a  notable  discus- 
sion which  took  place  among  American  bankers  as 
to  all  the  factors  which  made  London  the  financial 
centre  of  the  universe,  and  one  of  them  made  this 
profound  remark,  or  in  words  to  this  effect:  "We 
may  talk  of  bank  reserves,  of  currency  reforms,  of 
anything  you  will,  but  one  of  the  most  important 
facts  which  makes  London  the  centre  of  the  world 
of  banking  is  the  psychological  reserve  with  which 
the  bankers  work. "  You  know  what  he  meant  by 
"psychological  reserve, "  he  meant  the  wisdom,  the 
probity,  and  at  times  the  courage  with  which  the 
English  bankers  protect  the  interests  that  are 
confided  to  them.  Unless  you  have  that,  the 
whole  edifice  is  unsound.  It  is  a  factor  so  essen- 
tial that  without  it,  the  whole  thing  would  collapse 
like  a  house  of  cards.  It  is  something  which  no 
temptation  of  high  profits  or  speculative  gains  can 
shake.  You  know  of  course  that  the  history  of 
banking  in  the  past  is  full  of  instances  where  the 
refusal  of  bankers  to  be  bullied  by  Governments, 
cajoled  by  rulers  and  statesmen,  frightened  by 
rivals,  tempted  by  high  profits,  has  time  and  again 


Credit  and  International  Relations  139 

saved  the  solvency  of  thousands  and  protected 
the  well-being  and  happiness  of  millions. 

You  I  know  would  be  the  last  to  want  me  to 
indulge  in  highfaluting  in  this  matter,  but  you 
cannot  disassociate  the  moral  from  the  material 
side  in  this  matter.  That  confidence,  a  real  sense 
of  mutual  obligation,  and  the  knowledge  that  those 
obligations  will  be  unfalteringly  fulfilled  is,  of 
course,  the  very  essence  of  successfiil  banking,  the 
very  foundation  upon  which  the  well-being  of  any 
commercial  community  must  be  founded,  all  the 
cynical  critics  of  commercialism  notwithstanding. 
Indeed  we  can  show  by  the  facts  of  credit  what  can 
be  shown  in  no  other  way  of  which  I  am  aware: 
our  present  urgent  need  to  do  our  duty  and  to  keep 
our  faith  not  merely  to  communities  on  the  other 
side  of  the  world  that  we  have  never  seen  but  to 
the  communities  of  posterity,  the  communities 
that  are  not  yet  bom.  The  solvency  of  some  of 
our  greatest  commercial  institutions,  the  fortunes 
of  men  actually  present  in  the  room,  are  dependent 
upon  our  doing  the  utmost  to  see  that  obligations 
which  will  not  have  to  be  executed  for  perhaps 
half  a  century  and  in  favour  of  persons  not  yet 
bom  are  made  possible  of  fulfilment.  I  refer,  of 
course,  to  the  great  industry  of  insurance  though 
the  same  thing  is  true  in  lesser  degree  of  a  whole 
range  of  industries  and  financial  operations. 

There  is  something  uncanny  in  the  thought  that 
the  devices  of  credit  enable  us  thus  to  be  held  not 
merely  through  our  old  loans  by  the  dead  hand  of 


140  Arms  and  Industry 

the  past  but  to  be  held  just  as  firmly  by  the  hands 
of  generations  yet  unborn  and  compel  us,  willy- 
nilly,  to  do  our  duty  to  the  unknown  future.  I 
mention  this  merely  to  point  out  how  indissolubly 
the  whole  work  of  civilization  is  bound  up  with  the 
fact  of  credit ;  to  indicate  the  nature  of  the  cement 
which  it  has  introduced  into  our  social  future ;  how 
impossible  it  is  because  of  it  for  us  to  escape  our 
obligations;  how  its  infinite  ramifications  must 
more  and  more  compel  to  good  social  conduct. 

I  do  not  urge,  as  it  has  been  suggested,  that 
bankers  are  the  "saviours  of  society."  I  would, 
of  course,  on  this  occasion  like  to  pay  you  all  the 
compliments  I  can,  but  you  are  only  the  saviours 
of  society  in  the  sense  in  which  all  those  who 
perform  well  any  vital  social  function  are  the 
saviours  of  society — essential  to  it.  But  your 
profession  has  done  and  is  doing  much  in  a  special 
sense,  to  destroy  the  ancient  and  evil  illusion  I 
have  just  touched  on. 

This  condition  of  commercial  interdependence, 
which  is  the  special  mark  of  banking  as  it  is  the 
mark  of  no  other  profession  or  trade  in  quite 
the  same  degree — the  fact  that  the  interest  and  the 
solvency  of  one  is  bound  up  with  the  interest  and 
solvency  of  many;  that  there  must  be  confidence 
in  the  due  fulfilment  of  mutual  obligation,  or 
whole  sections  of  the  edifice  crumble,  is  surely 
doing  a  great  deal  to  demonstrate  that  morality 
after  all  is  not  founded  upon  self-sacrifice,  but 
upon  enlightened  self-interest,  a  clearer  and  more 


Credit  and  International  Relations  141 

complete  understanding  of  all  the  ties  which  bind 
us  the  one  to  the  other.  And  such  clearer  under- 
standing is  bound  to  improve,  not  merely  the  rela- 
tionship of  one  group  to  another,  but  the  relation- 
ship of  all  men  to  all  other  men,  to  create  a 
consciousness  which  will  make  for  more  efficient 
human  co-operation,  a  better  human  society. 

Note 

That  the  recognition  of  the  facts  sketched  in 
the  foregoing  address  is  beginning  to  appeal  to 
alert  and  open  minds  in  diplomacy  and  practical 
affairs  may  be  gathered  from  the  more  recent 
works  in  statecraft  and  diplomacy.  I  have 
had  occasion  several  times  in  this  book  to  show 
by  citation  that  most  accepted  authorities  in  diplo- 
macy were  until  lately  strongly  under  the  influence 
of  the  Machiavellian  tradition.  Yet  how  far  a  man 
like  Dr.  David  Jayne  Hill,  who  was  the  Ameri- 
can Ambassador  to  the  German  Court  and  who  is 
the  author  of  "A  History  of  Diplomacy  in  the  In- 
ternational Development  of  Europe"  (Oxford  Uni- 
versity Press),  has  progressed  beyond  what  he 
himself  calls  that  "Classic  Diplomacy  which  is 
based  on  the  assumption  that  every  state  is  seek- 
ing to  appropriate  for  itself  everything  in  the  world 
that  possesses  value  and  is  restrained  from  actually 
doing  so  only  by  the  resistance  it  may  encounter, " 
is  shown  by  the  following  passage  taken  from  his 
later  work  "  World  Organization  and  the  Modem 
State." 

"  International  spoliation  has  ceased  to  be  a  trade. 
Yet  all  the  old  traditions  of  depredations  from  be- 
yond the  border,  of  peaceful  commerce  exposed  to 


142  Arms  and  Industry 

capture  at  sea,  of  crushing  indemnities  to  be  paid  by 
the  vanquished  to  the  invading  conqueror  are  kept 
alive,  and  serve  to  thrill  the  readers  of  sensational 
publications,  and  to  force  the  assent  of  Parliamentary 
Committees  to  extravagant  military  appropriations. 
'Fear  and  distrust,'  the 'natural  enemy'  just  across 
the  frontier,  the  secret  treaties  expected  to  exist 
between  our  neighbours — all  these  linger  on, — creat- 
ing the  mirage  of  terror  and  suspicion  that  fills  the 
sky  only  because  there  is  a  background  of  mist  on 
which  alarming  images  are  painted  by  a  sun  that  has 
set! 

"'But  no,'  it  will  be  said,  'the  light  of  yesterday 
has  not  departed.  These  fears  are  well  grounded. 
Our  natural  enemy  is  stronger  than  we;  and  he  will, 
therefore,  avenge  himself  upon  us. '  Acting  upon  this 
assurance,  we  strive  to  become  stronger  than  he;  and 
now  this  'natural  enemy*  sa5''s,  with  all  honesty, 
'an  assault  is  imminent.  We  must  prepare  to  resist 
it. '  And  so,  by  a  process  of  endless  circular  reasoning 
the  illusion  of  hatred  and  hostility  is  kept  alive. 

"It  seems  rather  remarkable,  that  Governments,  who 
should  be  the  first  to  dispell  this  illusion,  are  the  most 
belated  of  all  in  perceiving  that  great  changes  have 
taken  place  in  the  relations  of  people.  Across  the 
frontier  there  is  another  civilised  people,  with  a  jural 
consciousness  as  deep,  as  enlightened,  and  as  anxious 
as  our  own.  We  loan  them,  or  they  loan  us,  vast 
sums  of  money;  exchanging  hundreds  of  millions  of 
dollars  of  securities,  on  the  faith  of  our  railroads,  our 
municipalities,  even  our  governments.  Will  these 
debts  ever  be  paid?  In  the  time  when  our  nearest 
neighbour,  stronger  than  we,  was  really  our  'natural 
enemy, '  and  really  would  have  invaded  our  territory 


Credit  and  International  Relations  143 

and  annexed  us,  securities  and  all,  it  is  doubtful  if 
they  would  have  been  paid;  but  no  one  now  doubts 
that  they  will  be.  Bankers  do  not  doubt  it,  investors 
do  not  doubt  it ;  why  then  should  Governments  believe, 
that  these  same  people,  who  expect  to  pay  their  debts, 
are  meditating  invasion  and  conquest,  with  all  that 
they  imply?  Simply  because  they  have  no  serious 
assurance  to  the  contrary. 

"And  so  it  happens,  that  the  modem  State,  the 
embodiment  of  law  and  the  protagonist  of  justice, 
whose  simple  promise  to  pay  is  bought  by  the  million 
in  the  open  market  by  the  shrewdest  interpreters  of 
human  intentions — the  bankers  and  money  lenders — 
permits  itself  to  be  discredited  by  a  dogma  of  diplo- 
macy which  sounds  to  every  honest  man  like  a  calumny 
on  human  decency. 

"  It  is  not  necessary  to  prove  that  human  nature  has 
changed,  or  will  change,  or  that  men  are  in  any  degree 
less  self -regarding  or  inspired  by  a  loftier  altruism  than 
prevailed  in  former  times.  It  is  simply  that  humanity 
has  discovered  a  new  path,  and  is  disposed  to  follow  it. 
It  is  perceived  that  happiness  can  be  obtained  more 
easily  and  more  surely  by  industry  than  by  plunder, 
by  commerce  than  by  piracy,  by  intercourse  between 
the  nations  than  by  isolation.  It  is,  therefore,  neces- 
sary to  reckon  with  the  new  social  forces  and  the  new 
standard  of  conduct  that  have  come  into  being  through 
improved  transportation,  practically  instantaneous 
communication,  the  discovery  of  new  natural  re- 
sources, and  of  new  forms  of  energy  to  render  them 
available. 

"It  is  important  to  consider  also,  that  the  modern 
State,  affording  more  equal  opportunities,  and  cover- 
ing productive  effort  with  the  aegis  of  its  protection, 


144  Arms  and  Industry 

has  changed  the  whole  nature  of  society.  The  in- 
dividual is  probably  no  less  egoistic  than  before,  but 
the  new  avenues  of  profitable  activity  are  open  to  his 
enterprise." 

WAR  AS  A  CAPITALIST  VENTURE 

The  following  article*  dealt  at  greater  length  with 
the  general  idea  that  it  is  to  the  interest  of  finan- 
ciers to  promote  war  and  deserves,  perhaps,  repro- 
duction in  this  connection: 

Financiers  and  War 

You  know  the  story  of  the  Coffin  Trust  in  the 
Chinese  Province  at  a  time  of  plague ;  how  when  at  the 
outbreak  the  Viceroy  began  to  apply  sanitary  mea- 
sures he  and  the  whole  Provincial  Government  were 
presented  with  shares  in  the  Coffin  Trust,  with  the 
result  that  the  authorities  forthwith  encouraged 
popular  prejudice  against  modern  sanitary  measures; 
the  plague  raged  unchecked,  and  the  Coffin  Trust  paid 
large  dividends.  Moral:  The  Coffin  Trust  "finance" 
is  at  the  bottom  of  plague  in  China. 

For  six  months  Europe  has  been  living  on  a  volcano ; 
the  well-being  of  three  hundred  millions,  more  or  less, 
has  been  in  jeopardy,  the  happiness  of  generations 
threatened  because  a  camorra  of  concession-mongers 
have  been  carrying  on  back-stairs  intrigues  in  order 
to  concoct  "deals."  Moral:  International  finance  is 
at  the  bottom  of  war  in  Europe. 

Well,  I  do  not  believe  that  either  conclusion  is  the 
right  one;  but,  on  the  contrary,  that  both  are  due  to  a 

*  From  the  London  Daily  Mail  of  January  3,  1912. 


Credit  and  International  Relations  145 

somewhat  muddle-headed  confusion,  which  is  par- 
ticularly mischievous  in  that  it  is  likely  to  lead  us 
woefully  astray  concerning  the  real  nature  of  the 
forces  at  work  around  us. 

What  is  the  quiet,  evident,  and  simple  truth  in  this 
matter?  It  is  that  a  relatively  infinitesimal  group  of 
financiers  is  able,  by  manipulating  a  mass  of  ignorance 
and  blind  prejudice,  to  profit  at  the  expense  of  all  other 
financiers  whatsoever.  It  would  be  truer  to  say  of 
plague  that  it  is  a  financial  interest  than  to  say  of  war 
that  it  is  one;  those  outside  the  "Trust"  may  escape 
plague ;  very  few  financiers  outside  the  armament  and 
concession  group  would  escape  the  damage  of  war. 

What  is  "international  finance"?  Is  it  a  small 
band  of  Frankfort  bankers  with  foreign  names  living 
by  the  exploitation  of  people  less  unscrupulous  than 
themselves?  That  is  a  picture  lending  itself  to  dra- 
matic and  sensational  treatment,  but  it  does  not 
happen  to  be  true.  All  bankers,  merchants,  investors, 
those  who  insure  their  lives,  who  have  holdings  in 
stocks  or  shares  of  any  kind,  are  financiers  in  the 
sense  that  they  are  interested  in  the  security  of  wealth 
and  the  better  organisation  of  finance.  Even  when 
we  use  the  term  "financier"  in  its  narrow  sense  we 
imply  generally  a  man  whose  fortune  is  based  upon  the 
general  prosperity:  if  the  world  as  a  whole  did  not 
make  and  save  and  invest  money,  financiers  could  not 
make  it — their  occupation  would  be  gone.  And  more 
and  more  is  it  true  that  modern  finance,  whether  in  the 
large  or  in  the  limited  sense,  is  bound  up  with  general 
security  and  prosperity;  the  more  that  becomes  evi- 
dent the  less  is  the  incentive  to  oppose  any  special 
interest  to  the  general  one.  In  a  prosperous  China, 
Chinese  financiers  would  not  invest  in  the  Cofl&n  Trust, 


146  Arms  and  Industry 

they  would  find  a  better  way  to  use  money  than  to 
speculate  in  an  industry  which  depended  upon  the 
foundations  of  all  wealth  being  threatened.  And  the 
same  is  true  of  investments  that  depend  for  their 
success  on  war. 

It  is  true,  of  course,  that  wherever  you  get  con- 
ditions in  which,  on  the  one  hand  the  general  interest 
is  very  ill-conceived  and  the  general  public  very  ill- 
informed,  subject  to  gusts  of  blind  prejudice  readily 
and  easily  stirred  into  life,  and  on  the  other  hand  a 
particular  interest  well  conceived  and  subject  to  no 
such  influence,  you  will  get  the  particular  interest 
controlling  the  general;  five  or  fifty  or  five  hundred 
men  manipulating  as  many  millions  to  their  own 
personal  advantage.  But  no  mechanical  reshaping 
of  society  could  ever  prevent  such  a  result  if  you  get 
these  two  elements  in  juxtaposition.  And  that  is 
true,  not  merely  in  the  domains  of  finance  and  politics 
but  in  things  like  religion  or  medicine.  It  is  the 
story  of  priestcraft,  quackery,  demagogism,  through 
all  the  ages. 

There  was  a  time  in  Europe  when  massacre  and 
cruelties  of  all  sorts,  credulity,  and  quaking  fear  of 
the  unseen,  passed  for  religion  with  great  masses  of 
the  population.  And  while  that  was  true,  a  camarilla 
of  priests  could  make  playthings  of  nations.  The 
relation  which  that  sort  of  "religion"  bore  to  morals  in 
Europe  in  the  past  the  wicked  rubbish  that  too  often 
passes  for  patriotism  bears  to  politics  to-day. 

Just  think  of  the  history  of  the  last  two  years. 
Consider  one  typical  incident.  Here  is  an  informed  and 
educated  man,  the  Professor  of  a  great  University,* 

*The  reference  is  to  the  interview  with  Professor  Delbriick 
which  appeared  in  the  Daily  Mail  of  December  27,  1912,  and 


Credit  and  International  Relations  147 

telling  his  countrymen  how  Great  Britain  had  on  three 
separate  occasions  plotted  to  make  war  on  them  in 
cold  blood  and  to  attack  them  without  warning.  He 
is,  of  course,  sincere  and  really  believes  this  thing. 

Now  if  that  behef  is  possible  in  the  case  of  one  of  the 
most  educated  men  on  the  Continent,  one  of  whose 
specialities  is  political  history,  what  may  we  not 
expect  from  the  common  ruck  of  the  workaday  world 
who  have  no  time  to  examine  things  carefully  or  to 
weigh  evidence? 

And  this  incident,  of  course,  is  not  peculiar  to 
Germany.  It  is  the  exact  measure  of  our  wisdom  in 
like  matters.  I  will  take  the  most  outrageous  mani- 
festation of  Anglophobia  which  you  can  find  in  Ger- 
many to-day  and  duplicate  it  by  an  exactly  similar 
manifestation  from  American  public  men  and  news- 
papers of  fifteen  years  ago.  I  have  heard  a  popular 
American  senator  declare  that  it  was  America's 
manifest  duty  to  annihilate  Great  Britain,  that  Amer- 
ica had  to  "fight  England  or  float  a  dead  whale  on  the 
ocean." 

Wherever  such  a  mixture  of  credulity,  ignorance, 
and  sectional  prejudice  is  justified  by  high-falutin' 
appeals  to  patriotism,  where  respectable  public  men 
can  directly  encourage  it  by  the  "my  country,  right 
or  wrong,"  nonsense — as  though  so  to  act  that  one's 
country  does  wrong  instead  of  right,  to  direct  by  our 
influence  and  our  vote  that  our  nation  does  the  foolish 
thing  instead  of  the  wise,  were  the  way  to  serve  one's 
country — you  will  get  a  condition  of  things  in  which 
the  trade  and  industry  of  millions  will  be  bled  for  the 
personal  profit  of  a  few  unscrupulous  and  intriguing 

which  caused  much  discussion  both  in  England  and  on  the  Con- 
tinent. 


148  Arms  and  Industry 

men,  just  as  in  the  domain  of  religion  priestcraft  has 
been  known  to  profit  by  creduHty,  passion,  and 
prejudice.  But  the  progress  which  has  been  made 
towards  better  rehgious  conceptions  can  be  made, 
and  more  easily,  towards  better  political  conceptions ; 
what  the  mind  of  man  has  done  for  religion  it  can 
certainly  do  for  patriotism. 

It  cannot  be  too  often  repeated  that  the  necessary 
profitlessness  of  war  between  civilized  nations,  the 
necessary  interdependence  of  nations,  will  not  stop 
war.  It  is  the  general  recognition  of  profitlessness 
and  interdependence  that  will  stop  war.  Impersonal 
forces,  the  Stock  Exchange,  and  the  rest  of  it,  will 
certainly  push  these  truths  more  and  more  into  our 
notice.  But  the  rapidity  with  which  we  shall  arrive 
at  a  better  condition  of  things  depends,  as  every  other 
part  of  man's  struggle  for  life  depends,  on  the  extent  to 
which  he  brings  his  intelligence  to  bear  on  the  matter. 
The  rate  of  real  progress  is  the  rate  of  improvement  in 
ideas.  And  when  our  ideas  as  to  the  real  relationship 
of  nations  have  become  somewhat  saner,  it  will  no 
longer  be  possible  for  intriguing  statesmen  or  con- 
cession-hunters to  explode  these  magazines  of  ignor- 
ance and  passion.  All  their  intrigues  will  fizzle  out 
as  harmlessly  as  a  wax  vesta  on  a  cement  floor. 


IV 


THE   PLACE   OF   MILITARY   FORCE    IN   MODERN 
STATECRAFT 

(An  address  delivered  before  the  Royal  United  Service  Institu- 
tion, October  8,  1913,  Major-General  Sir  Thomas  Fraser,  K.C.B., 
C.M.G.,  in  the  chair.) 

It  is  not  specifically  the  soldier's  business  to 
discuss  policy,  but  to  execute  it  if  called  on  to  do  so. 
Yet,  apart  from  the  fact — more  emphasized  in  the 
German  school  of  statecraft  than  our  own — that 
war  is  inevitably  part  of  policy,  and  that  its  con- 
duct, even,  is  directly  affected  by  the  nature  of 
the  policy  that  dictates  it,  the  soldier  may  be  for- 
given a  little  human  curiosity  as  to  what  the 
fighting  is  about,  what  part  his  work  plays  in  the 
general  scheme  of  things  in  the  world. 

The  astonishing  thing  is  how  little  attention  we 
have  given  in  England  to  the  relation  between  war 
and  policy  in  the  largest  sense.  We  have  great 
students  of  war  and  we  have  great  students  of 
policy,  but  our  study  is  generally  in  water-tight 
compartments,  and  the  relation  between  the  two 
is  for  the  most  part  marked  by  an  extraordinary 
hiatus,  filled  in  sometimes  with  a  series  of  apo- 
phthegms as,  that  war  represents  the  policing  of 

149 


150  Arms  and  Industry 

mankind,  or  the  struggle  for  survival,  or  the 
expression  of  a  spiritual  need  for  action,  mankind's 
purge  of  the  decadent,  and  much  more  to  the  same 
effect,  concerning  which  one  may  say  with  cer- 
tainty this:  that  whatever  war  may  be,  it  is  none 
of  these  things. 

Any  discussion  of  the  general  problem  of  state- 
craft must  be  preceded  by  this  question:  "For 
what  purpose  does  the  State  exist?"  To  advance 
the  well-being  of  its  citizens?  Which  suggests 
the  further  question,  "What  is  well-being?" 
Although  one  might  split  hairs  for  very  long  on  this 
subject,  we  of  the  Western  world  have  a  pretty 
clear  notion  of  the  condition  which  we  try  to 
perpetuate  and  enlarge  by  our  political  effort; 
ample  food  and  warmth,  clothing,  decent  housing, 
freedom  from  disease,  the  security  which  enables 
us  to  go  about  our  business  undisturbed;  and 
bound  up  with  this  material  prosperity,  certain 
spiritual  possessions:  a  desire  to  live  imder  our 
own  laws,  using  our  language,  expressing  ourselves 
freely  in  a  distinct  literature  and  social  life — the 
thing  which  we  call,  generally,  nationality. 

It  is  to  ensure  these  things  that  States  exist, 
and  the  question  which  brings  us  immediately  to 
the  fundamental  problem  of  war  is  this:  Is  the 
State  in  ensuring  these  things  to  a  large  degree 
brought  into  necessary  conflict  wath  other  States? 
Does  it,  in  securing  for  its  citizens  the  largest 
opportunities,  do  so  at  the  expense  of  the  citizens 
of  other  States,  either  negatively  or  positively — 


Military  Force  in  Modern  Statecraft    151 

that  is  to  say,  either  by  keeping  them  out  of 
possible  opportunities,  or  by  turning  them  out  of 
actual  enjoyment  of  such?  If  that  be  true,  and 
if  we  take  the  further  ground — which  I  do — that  a 
statesman's  first  duty  is  to  his  own  people,  then 
you  get  what  the  Greek  author  two  thousand  years 
ago  declared  was  the  great  tragedy  of  human  life, 
the  conflict  of  two  rights,  a  condition  in  which 
neither  party  to  a  difference  is  able  to  arrest  his 
action,  save  at  the  cost  of  the  betrayal  of  his  trust, 
though  the  two  actions  necessarily  converge  to 
collision,  and  that  collision,  in  the  case  of  States, 
is  expressed  in  war. 

I  have  given  you  immediately  what  I  believe  to 
be  the  best  statement  of  the  case  for  regarding  war 
as  an  inevitable  feature  of  statecraft  in  the  modern 
world;  a  statement,  moreover,  implying  in  my  view 
a  moral  justification  to  which,  it  must  be  confessed, 
the  classic  authorities  have  seemed  for  the  most 
part  to  be  indifferent. 

One  need  not  go  back  to  Machiavelli  for  a  form 
of  statement  of  this  view  of  the  necessary  rivalry 
of  nations,  the  view  that  nations  are  "predatory 
entities, "  so  crude  as  to  sound  like  the  maxims  of 
brigands.  You  will  find  Machiavelli's  maxims 
re-stated  and  re-enforced  in  the  pages  of  writers 
like  Clausewitz,  Steinmetz,  de  Gartden,  Von 
Ihreing,  Bernhardi,  in  fact,  in  the  pages  of  most 
of  those  who  during  the  last  two  centuries  whether 
in  Germany,  France,  or  England,  have  dealt  with 
problems  of  international  politics  in  just  such  a 


152  Arms  and  Industry 

way.  And  it  is  rather  a  curious  fact  that  those 
who  in  recent  years  have  attempted  to  show  these 
cannibalistic  maxims  to  be,  even  when  judged  by 
the  test  of  interest  and  advantage,  unsoimd  and 
untenable,  are  now  assailed  almost  ferociously 
by  certain  writers  who  have,  at  least  in  part, 
supported  the  older  view  of  statecraft,  as  applying 
too  sordid  a  measure  to  human  conduct ! 

Admiral  Mahan,  an  exponent  of  orthodox  state- 
craft on  its  strategical  side,  criticizes  my  own  work 
as  "a  profound  misreading  of  human  action,"  the 
assumption  that  nations  act  from  motives  of  in- 
terest being  "much  less  worthy  than  those  which 
mankind,  to  do  it  bare  justice,  persistently  main- 
tains. "*     This  in  passing. 

I  prefer  to  state  the  classic  statecraft  in  terms 
that  are  capable  of  moral  justification — terms  that 
have  been  employed  by  men  like  Mahan  himself 
in  America  and  Spencer  Wilkinson  in  England;  a 
case  based  on  the  premise  that  statesmen  are 
compelled  to  do  the  best  possible  for  their  own 
people,  and  that,  if  it  is  a  choice  between  the  in- 
terests of  our  own  countrymen  and  the  interests  of 
foreigners,  we  must  choose  the  interests  of  our  coun- 
trymen, just  as  one  does  in  matters  of  fiscal  policy. 

Quite  simply  and  concretely  was  the  orthodox 
view  expressed  more  than  a  decade  since  by  the 
German  delegate  to  the  first  Hague  Peace  Confer- 
ence, Baron  Karl  von  Stengel.  This  authority  lays 
it  down  in  his  book  that — 

*  "Armaments  and  Arbitration,"  Harpers. 


Military  Force  in  Modern  Statecraft    153 

"Every  great  Power  must  employ  its  efforts  towards 
exercising  the  largest  influence  possible,  not  only  in 
European  but  in  world  politics,  and  this  mainly 
because  economic  power  depends  in  the  last  resort  on 
political  power,  and  because  the  largest  participation 
possible  in  the  trade  of  the  world  is  a  vital  question 
for  every  nation." 

This  view  has  the  heartiest  endorsement  of  our 
own  greatest  authorities.  Admiral  Mahan,  whose 
work  on  the  influence  of  sea  power  gives  him,  on 
his  side  of  the  question,  an  authority  second  to 
none,  is  still  more  emphatic  and  still  more  definite, 
and  in  one  notable  passage*  he  shows  it  to  be  part 
of  his  case  that  the  "naval  supremacy  of  Great 
Britain  in  European  seas  means  a  perpetually  la- 
tent control  of  German  commerce."  The  greatest 
Anglo-Saxon  exponent  of  the  old  political  creed 
lays  it  down  quite  clearly  that  "the  rivalry  between 
Great  Britain  and  Germany  is  part  of  the  struggle 
for  commercial  and  industrial  predominance  which 
is  now  going  on  between  the  two  countries. " 

In  a  qmte  recent  book — written  the  last  year — 
an  English  exponent  of  the  same  view  ("Rifle- 
man,") puts  the  case  still  more  strongly: 

"You  cannot  abolish  war  from  a  competitive  system 
of  civilization ;  competition  is  the  root-basis  of  such  a 
system  of  civilization,  and  competition  is  war.  When 
a  business  firm  crushes  a  trade-rival  from  the  markets 
by  cut-prices  there  is  exactly  the  same  process  at  work 

*"The  Interest  of  America  in  International  Conditions." 
Harpers. 


154  Arms  and  Industry 

as  when  a  business-nation  crushes  a  trade-rival  by 
physical  force.  The  means  vary,  but  the  end  in  view 
and  the  ethical  principles  in  question  are  identical. 
In  both  cases,  the  weaker  goes  to  the  wall ;  in  both 
cases  it  is  woe  to  the  vanquished. "  ("The  Struggle  for 
Bread,"  p.  209.) 

This  author  adds:  "The  teaching  of  all  history  is 
that  commerce  grows  under  the  shadow  of  armed 
strength.  Every  war  which  we  have  waged  from 
the  days  of  Cromwell  to  the  present  has  been  to 
protect  British  Commerce."*  (p.  145). 

Surely  a  similar  view  is  indicated  by  Lord 
Roberts  when  he  tells  us  at  Manchester  that — 

"We  have  lost  command  of  every  sea  but  one — the 
North  Sea — 'and  our  supremacy  over  that  sea  is  now  a 
matter  of  dispute.  In  other  words,  whereas  your 
forefathers  traded  as  of  right  on  every  sea,  now  you 
only  trade  by  the  sufferance  of  other  Powers." 

You  can  find  illustrations  of  this  general  prin- 
ciple in  any  current  discussion  on  the  subject.  I 
pitch  at  hazard,  for  instance,  on  an  article 
headed,  "Welt  Politik, "  in  the  current  National 
Review,  and  find  the  expression  of  opinion  that 
"Germany  must  expand.  Every  year  an  extra 
million  babies  are  crying  out  for  more  room;  and 
as  the  expansion  of  Germany  by  peaceful  means 
seems  impossible,  Germany  can  only  provide  for 
those  babies  at  the  cost  of  potential  foes,  and 

*  I  need  hardly  say  I  do  not  share  this  view.  The  book  from 
which  I  am  quoting  has  as  sub-title,  "A  Reply  to  the  Great 
Illusion." 


Military  Force  in  Modern  Statecraft    155 

France  is  one  of  them.  The  same  struggle  for 
life  and  space,  which  more  than  a  thousand  years 
ago  drove  one  Teutonic  wave*  after  another  across 
the  Rhine  and  the  Alps,  is  now  once  more  a  great 
compelling  force.  Colonies  fit  to  receive  the  Ger- 
man surplus  population  are  the  greatest  need  of 
Germany.  This  aspect  of  the  case  may  be  all 
very  sad  and  very  wicked,  but  it  is  true." 

The  author  adds,  aptly  enough:  "So  it  is  im- 
possible and  is  absurd  to  accept  the  theory  of  Mr. 
Norman  Angell."  And,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  if 
this  author's  statement  of  the  case  is  correct,  my 
theory  is  absolutely  and  completely  wrong.  I  will 
hazard,  however,  in  passing,  the  guess  that  the 
writer  of  the  article  in  question  has  not  the  faintest 
notion  of  how  that  theory  is  supported ;  his  form  of 
statement  implies  that  it  has  burked  the  series  of 
facts  to  which  he  refers ;  whereas,  of  course,  it  has 
been  stated  in  terms  of  them. 

Before  giving  an  abstract  analysis  of  the  fal- 

*  As  a  matter  of  simple  fact,  of  course,  the  "  Teutonic  waves" 
were  probably  never  a  matter  of  the  pressure  of  population  upon 
the  means  of  subsistence  even  in  the  rudimentary  stage  of  culti- 
vation. Caesar  tells  us  that  the  emigrating  Germans  possessed 
vast  uncultivated  lands.  ("Commentaries,"  I.,  IV., 553.)  Gibbon 
also  says:  "For  my  part  I  have  not  been  able  to  discover  any  proof 
that  their  (the  barbarians')  emigration  ever  proceeded  from  want 
of  room  at  home."  The  modem  era  of  German  emigration  has 
ceased  (whereas  twenty  years  ago  200,000  Germans  left  Germany 
every  year  practically  none  leave  to-day)  now  that  the  popula- 
tion has  increased,  while  the  immigration  into  Germany  from  Rus- 
sia, for  instance,  is  very  large,  amounting  in  1911  to  something 
like  a  quarter  of  a  million  labourers. 


156  Arms  and  Industry 

lacy  which  I  believe  underlies  this  notion  of  the 
inevitable  conflict  of  States  in  the  pursuit  of  the 
object  for  which  they  have  been  created,  I  will  try, 
by  recalling  very  simple  historical  facts,  to  indicate 
certain  processes  that  have  operated  in  human 
society,  and  which  give  at  least  a  hint  of  the  nature 
of  the  fallacy. 

When  the  men  of  Wessex  were  fighting  with  the 
men  of  Sussex,  far  more  frequently  and  bitterly 
than  to-day  the  men  of  Germany  fight  with  those 
of  France,  or,  either,  with  those  of  Russia,  the 
separate  States  which  formed  this  island  were 
struggling  with  one  another  for  sustenance,  just 
as  the  tribes  which  inhabited  the  North  American 
Continent  at  the  time  of  our  arrival  there  were 
struggling  with  one  another  for  the  game  and 
hunting  grounds.  It  was  in  both  cases  ultimately 
a  "struggle  for  bread."  At  that  time,  when  this 
island  was  composed  of  several  separate  States, 
that  struggled  thus  with  one  another  for  land  and 
food,  it  supported  with  great  difficulty  anything 
between  one  and  two  million  inhabitants,  just  as 
the  vast  spaces  now  occupied  by  the  United  States 
supported  about  a  hundred  thousand,  often  sub- 
ject to  famine,  frequently  suffering  great  shortage 
of  food,  able  to  secure  just  the  barest  existence  of 
the  simplest  kind.  To-day,  although  this  island 
supports  anything  from  twenty  to  forty  times,  and 
North  America  something  like  a  thousand  times,  as 
large  a  population  in  much  greater  comfort,  with 
no  period  of  famine,  with  the  whole  population 


Military  Force  in  Modern  Statecraft    157 

living  much  more  largely  and  deriving  much  more 
from  the  soil  than  did  the  men  of  the  Heptarchy, 
the  "struggle  for  bread"  does  not  now  take  the 
form  of  struggle  between  groups  of  the  population. 

This  simple  illustration  is  at  least  proof  of  this, 
that  the  struggle  for  material  things  did  not  in- 
volve any  necessary  struggle  between  the  separate 
groups  or  States;  for  those  material  things  are 
given  in  infinitely  greater  abundance  when  the 
States  cease  to  struggle.  Whatever,  therefore, 
was  the  origin  of  those  conflicts,  that  origin  was 
not  any  inevitable  conflict  in  the  exploitation  of 
the  earth.  If  those  conflicts  were  concerned  with 
material  things  at  all,  they  arose  from  a  mistake 
about  the  best  means  of  obtaining  them,  exploiting 
the  earth,  and  ceased  when  those  concerned  real- 
ized the  mistake. 

So  much  for  the  material  side.  Now  for  the 
moral.    . 

Man's  most  important  moral  possession  is  his 
religion.  It  concerns  his  relation  not  merely  to 
life,  but  to  eternity;  and,  incidentally,  for  a  very 
long  period  in  European  history,  religion  was  the 
main  pre-occupation  of  statecraft.  The  duty  of 
the  State  to  dictate  the  belief  of  its  subjects  was 
for  long  a  right  very  tenaciously  held;  and  held 
on  groimds  for  which  there  is  an  immense  deal  to 
be  said;  and  it  was  accepted  for  long  as  an  axiom, 
that  men  were  secure  in  their  faith  only  by  virtue 
of  the  force  they  could  exercise  to  protect  it,  and, 
that,  consequently,  so  long  as  men  valued  their 


158  Arms  and  Industry 

spiritual  possessions,  military  conflicts  between  the 
religious  groups  would  be  inevitable.  This  in- 
evitability was  a  commonplace  of  discussions  on 
statecraft,  especially  in  France,  during  the  1 6th, 
17th,  and  the  early  part  of  the  i8th  centuries. 
And  yet  religious  wars  came  to  an  end,  not  by 
virtue  of  the  State  imposing  peace — the  trouble 
arose  largely  from  just  that  attempt — but  simply 
because  the  general  development  of  European 
thought  undermined  that  conception  of  the  rela- 
tion of  force  to  religious  faith  and  truth,  out  of 
which  the  conflict  arose. 

Here  we  have,  then,  two  very  pertinent  facts, 
which  bear  upon  this  doctrine  of  the  inevitability 
of  military  conflict  between  groups,  whether  that 
conflict  be  over  material  or  moral  questions. 

But  I  want,  by  the  illustration  of  a  further  fact, 
and  not  yet  by  abstract  analysis,  to  get  a  little 
nearer  to  the  heart  of  this  fallacy  of  the  inevitable 
conflict  of  states.  The  view  which  I  have  quoted 
concerning  the  necessity  of  Germany's  expansion 
as  a  sheer  matter  of  finding  bread  for  her  increas- 
ing population,  has  found  during  the  last  year  or 
two  very  general  expression.  One  author  declares 
that  in  the  last  resort,  Germany's  menace  is  also 
a  struggle  for  bread ;  she  needs  the  wheat  and  food 
of  Canada,  or  of  some  other  colony,  wherewith  to 
feed  her  children.  Well,  is  it  not  quite  obvious 
that  Germany  can  have  that  food  now  by  paying 
for  it,  and  that  even  if  she  conquered  Canada,  she 
would  still  have  to  pay  for  it;   that  the  fact  of 


Military  Force  in  Modern  Statecraft    159 

political  conquest  would  make  no  difference  to  the 
problem  of  subsistence  one  way  or  another?  I 
can  hint  briefly  at  a  process,  which  I  have  sketched 
in  very  considerable  detail  elsewhere,  in  the 
following  passage: 

"  In  the  days  of  the  sailing  ship  and  the  lumbering 
wagon  dragging  slowly  over  all  but  impassable  roads, 
for  one  country  to  derive  any  considerable  profit  from 
another  it  had  practically  to  administer  it  politically. 
But  the  compound  steam-engine,  the  railway,  the 
telegraph,  have  profoundly  modified  the  elements  of 
the  whole  problem.  In  the  modern  world  political 
dominion  is  playing  a  more  and  more  effaced  r61e  as  a 
factor  in  commerce;  the  non-political  factors  have  in 
practice  made  it  all  but  inoperative.  It  is  the  case 
with  every  modern  nation  actually,  that  the  outside 
territories  which  it  exploits  most  successfully  are  pre- 
cisely those  of  which  it  does  not  'own'  a  foot.  Even 
with  the  most  characteristically  colonial  of  all — Great 
Britain — the  greater  part  of  her  overseas  trade  is  done 
with  countries  which  she  makes  no  attempt  to  'own,* 
control,  coerce,  or  dominate;  and  incidentally  she  has 
ceased  to  do  any  of  those  things  with  her  colonies. 

"Millions  of  Germans  in  Prussia  and  Westphalia 
derive  profit  or  make  their  living  out  of  countries  to 
which  their  political  dominion  in  no  way  extends. 
The  modern  German  exploits  South  America  by  re- 
maining at  home.  Where,  forsaking  this  principle, 
he  attempts  to  work  through  political  power,  he 
approaches  futility.  German  colonies  are  colonies 
pour  rire.  The  Government  has  to  bribe  Germans 
to  go  to  them;  her  trade  with  them  is  microscopic; 


i6o  Arms  and  Industry 

and  if  the  twenty  millions  who  have  been  added  to 
Germany's  population  since  the  war  had  to  depend  on 
their  country's  political  conquest,  they  would  have 
had  to  starve.  What  feeds  them  are  countries  which 
Germany  has  never  'owned'  and  never  hopes  to 
'own' — Brazil,  Argentina,  the  United  States,  India, 
Australia,  Canada,  Russia,  France,  and  England. 
(Germany,  which  never  spent  a  mark  on  its  political 
conquest,  to-day  draws  more  tribute  from  South 
America  than  does  Spain,  which  has  poured  out  moun- 
tains of  treasure  and  oceans  of  blood  in  its  conquest.) 
These  are  Germany's  real  colonies." 

I  have  not  space  here  to  deal  in  detail  with 
questions  which  doubtless  occur  to  you  as  partially 
affecting  this  generalization — the  question  of 
hostile  tariffs,  of  preferential  treatment  for  the 
Motherland  and  so  forth.*  All  I  am  trying  to  do  is 
to  suggest  to  your  mind  certain  facts  of  the  modem 
world  which  render  the  proposition  concerning  the 
place  of  military  force  as  a  means  to  the  end  for 
which  States  exist,  as,  to  say  the  least,  incomplete. 
Before  leaving  this  particular  phase  of  the  question 
I  will  hint  at  certain  historical  developments  in 
reference  to  the  question  of  expansion  by  conquest, 
which  also  I  have  dealt  with  at  greater  length 
elsewhere. 

What  was  the  problem  confronting  the  merchant 
adventurer  of  the  sixteenth  century?  Here  were 
newly-discovered  foreign  lands  containing,  as  he 

*  These  points  are  dealt  with  in  detail  in  a  previous  work  of 
mine.  See  "The  Great  Illusion"  (Putnam's),  Chapters  V.,  VI., 
VII.,  and  VIII.,  Part  I. 


Military  Force  in  Modern  Statecraft    i6i 

believed,  precious  metals  and  stones  and  spices, 
and  inhabited  by  savages  or  semi-savages.  If 
other  traders  got  those  stones,  it  was  quite  evident 
that  he  coiild  not.  His  colonial  policy,  therefore, 
had  to  be  directed  to  two  ends :  first,  such  political 
effective  occupation  of  the  country  that  he  could 
keep  the  savage  or  semi-savage  population  in 
check,  so  that  he  could  exploit  the  territory  for  its 
wealth;  and,  secondly,  exclusion  of  other  nations 
from  this  wealth  in  precious  metals,  spices,  etc., 
since,  if  they  obtained  it,  he  could  not. 

That  is  the  story  of  the  French  and  Dutch  in 
India,  of  the  Spanish  in  South  America.  But  as 
soon  as  there  grew  up  in  those  countries  an  or- 
ganized community  living  in  the  country  itself, 
the  whole  problem  changed.  The  colonies,  then, 
have  a  value  to  the  mother-country,  mainly  as  a 
market,  and  a  source  of  food  and  raw  material ;  and 
if  their  value  in  those  respects  is  to  be  developed 
to  the  full,  they  inevitably  become  self-governing 
communities  in  greater  or  less  degree,  and  the 
mother-country  exploits  them  exactly  as  she  ex- 
ploits any  other  community  with  which  she  may 
be  in  relation.  Germany  might  acquire  Canada, 
but  it  could  no  longer  ever  be  a  question  of  her 
taking  Canada's  wealth  in  precious  metals  or  of 
any  other  form  to  the  exclusion  of  other  nations. 
Could  Germany  "own"  Canada,  she  would  have 
to  "own"  it  in  the  same  way  that  we  do;  the 
Germans  would  have  to  pay  for  every  sack  of 
wheat  and  every  pound  of  beef  that  they  might 


i62  Arms  and  Industry- 

buy,  just  as  though  Canada  "belonged"  to  Great 
Britain  or  to  anybody  else.  Germany  could  not 
have  even  the  meagre  satisfaction  of  Germanizing 
these  great  communities,  for  one  knows  that  they 
are  far  too  firmly  "set,"  Their  language,  law, 
morals,  would  have  to  be,  after  German  conquest, 
what  they  are  now.  Germany  would  find  that 
the  German  Canada  was  pretty  much  the  Canada 
that  it  is  now — a  country  where  Germans  are  free 
to  go  and  do  go,  which  is  now  a  field  for  Germany's 
expanding  population. 

Having  illustrated  the  difference  between  the 
generally  accepted  theory  of  the  role  of  political 
power  and  the  facts,  I  will  now  attempt  to  define 
it  in  precise  terms.  The  divergence  arises  pri- 
marily from  a  misconception  of  the  real  functions 
of  government  in  the  modern  world.  The  current 
conception  is  based  upon  the  image  of  a  State  as 
the  economic  executive  of  its  citizens,  as  a  limited 
liability  company — or  its  board — ^is  the  economic 
executive  of  its  shareholders,  and  a  chiirch  is  the 
spiritual  executive  of  its  members  in  the  matter  of 
dogma  or  discipline. 

And  I  am  afraid  this  confusion  is  not  merely  a 
"vulgar  error."  No  less  a  person  than  Admiral 
Mahan  assures  us  that  the  struggle  for  territory 
between  nations  is  justified  economically,  by  the 
fact  that  just  as  a  steel  trust  has  an  advantage  in 
owning  its  own  ore  fields,  its  stores  of  raw  material, 
so  a  country  has  an  advantage  in  owning  colonies 
and  conquered  provinces.     We  see  at  once  the 


Military  Force  in  Modern  Statecraft    163 

idea :  the  nation  is  a  commercial  corporation  like  a 
steel  trust. 

Well,  of  course,  a  moment's  reflection  shows  us 
that  the  analogy  is  an  absolutely  false  one;  that 
these  pictures  of  nations  as  rival  units  competing 
one  against  the  other  bear  no  sort  of  resemblance 
to  the  facts. 

To  begin  with,  the  nations,  except  in  so  far  as 
the  carrying  of  letters,  and,  in  some  cases,  the 
manufacture  of  matches  and  tobacco  are  concerned, 
are  not  commercial  corporations  at  all,  but  politi- 
cal and  administrative  ones,  with  functions  of  a 
like  kind  to  those  possessed  by  our  villages,  towns, 
or  counties,  and  Germany  no  more  competes  with 
Britain  than  Birmingham  does  with  Sheffield.  It 
is  not  the  State  which  owns  and  exploits  the  ore 
fields  or  farms,  or  factories,  in  the  way  that  the 
Steel  Trust  owns  its  sources  of  raw  material.  The 
State  merely  polices  and  guarantees  possession  to 
the  real  owners,  the  shareholders,  who  may  be 
foreigners.  The  mere  fact  that  the  area  of  poli- 
tical administration  would  be  enlarged  or  con- 
tracted by  the  process  which  we  call  conquest,  has 
little  more  direct  bearing  upon  such  economic 
questions  as  the  ownership  of  raw  material  by  the 
populations  concerned,  than  would  the  enlargement 
of  a  town's  area  by  the  inclusion  of  outlying  sub- 
urbs have  upon  the  trading  of  the  citizens  of  such 
towns.  It  is,  of  course,  conceivable  that  they,  or 
some,  might  incidentally  gain,  or  incidentally  lose, 
but  an  increase  of  wealth  is  no  necessary  conse- 


1 64  Arms  and  Industry 

quence  of  the  increase  of  municipal  territory,  or 
else  it  would  be  true  to  say:  "The  people  of 
Toulouse  are  of  course  wealthier  than  the  people 
of  Tours,"  or  those  of  Birmingham  than  those  of 
Nottingham.  We  know,  of  course,  that  we  cannot 
determine  the  wealth  of  a  person  by  the  size  of  the 
town  in  which  he  lives.  The  largeness  of  the 
administrative  area  may  be  incidentally  a  distinct 
economic  disadvantage,  as  much  in  the  case  of  a 
city  as  in  the  case  of  a  country. 

But  the  foregoing  is  only  one  small  part  of  the 
fallacy  of  approximating  a  nation  to  a  commercial 
firm.  Not  merely  is  it  untrue  to  represent  the 
nation  as  carrying  on  trade  against  other  nations, 
untrue  to  represent  the  State  as  a  corporation 
carrying  on  the  trade  of  its  people,  but  it  is  just  as 
untrue  to  represent  the  nations  as  economic  units 
in  the  field  of  international  trade.  We  talk  and 
think  of  "German  trade"  as  competing  in  the 
world  with  "British  trade,"  and  we  have  in  our 
mind  that  what  is  the  gain  of  Germany  is  the  loss 
of  Britain,  or  vice  versa.  It  is  absolutely  untrue. 
There  is  no  such  conflict — no  such  thing  as  "Brit- 
ish" trade  or  "German"  trade  in  this  sense. 
An  iron  master  in  Birmingham  may  have  his  trade 
taken  away  by  the  competition  of  an  iron  master 
in  Essen,  just  as  he  may  have  it  taken  away  by 
one  in  Glasgow  or  Belfast,  or  Pittsburg,  but  in  the 
present  condition  of  the  division  of  labour  in  the 
world,  it  would  be  about  as  true  to  speak  of  Britain 
suffering  by  the  competition  of  Germany,  as  it 


Military  Force  in  Modern  Statecraft     165 

would  be  to  talk  of  light-haired  people  suffering 
by  the  competition  of  the  dark-haired  people,  or  of 
the  fact  that  those  who  live  in  houses  with  even 
numbers  are  being  driven  out  of  business  by  those 
who  live  in  odd-numbered  houses.  Such  delimi- 
tations do  not  mark  the  economic  delimitations; 
the  economic  function  cuts  athwart  them;  the 
frontiers  of  the  two  do  not  coincide. 

When  we  talk  of  "German"  trade  in  the  inter- 
national field,  what  do  we  mean?  Here  is  the 
iron  master  in  Essen  making  locomotives  for  a 
light  railway  in  an  Argentine  province  (the  capital 
for  which  has  been  subscribed  in  Paris) — which  has 
become  necessary  because  of  the  export  of  wool  to 
Bradford,  where  the  trade  has  developed  owing  to 
sales  in  the  United  States,  due  to  high  prices  pro- 
duced by  the  destruction  of  sheep  runs,  owing  to 
the  agricultural  development  of  the  West.  But  for 
the  money  found  in  Paris  (due  perhaps,  to  good 
crops  in  wine  and  olives,  sold  mainly  in  London  and 
New  York) ,  and  the  wool  needed  by  the  Bradford 
manufacturer  (who  has  found  a  market  for  blankets 
among  miners  in  Montana,  who  are  smelting 
copper  for  a  cable  to  China,  which  is  needed 
because  the  encouragement  given  to  education 
by  the  Chinese  Republic  has  caused  Chinese  news- 
papers to  print  cable  news  from  Europe) — but  for 
such  factors  as  these,  and  a  whole  chain  of  equally 
interdependent  ones  throughout  the  world,  the 
iron  master  in  Essen  would  not  have  been  able  to 
sell   his   locomotives.     How,    therefore,    can   you 


1 66  Arms  and  Industry 

describe  it  as  part  of  the  trade  of  "Germany" 
which  is  in  competition  with  the  trade  of  "Britain " 
or  "France"  or  "America?"  But  for  the  British, 
French,  and  American  trade,  it  could  not  have 
existed  at  all.  You  may  say  that  if  the  Essen 
iron  master  could  have  been  prevented  from  selling 
his  locomotives  the  trade  would  have  gone  to  a 
British  one.  But,  this  community  of  German 
workmen,  called  into  existence  by  the  Argentine 
trade,  maintains  by  its  consumption  of  coffee  a 
plantation  in  Brazil,  which  buys  its  machinery  in 
Sheffield.  The  destruction,  therefore,  of  the  Essen 
trade,  while  it  might  have  given  business  to  the 
British  locomotive  maker,  would  have  taken  it 
from,  say,  a  British  agricultural  implement  maker. 
The  economic  interests  involved  sort  themselves, 
irrespective  of  the  national  groupings. 

The  notion  that  it  is  the  nations,  and  not  the 
trades,  which  are  the  rival  economic  units,  can  be 
put  to  a  very  simple  test — the  test  of  progression. 
"Great  Britain"  (adopting  for  the  moment  the 
ruling  classification)  has  admittedly  the  greatest 
interest  in  foreign  trade,  and  it  is  she  who  is  sup- 
posed to  be  feeling  most  keenly  the  competition  of 
rivals.  Now  suppose  that  by  some  magic  she 
could  annihilate  all  these  rivals — Germany,  the 
United  States,  Austria,  France,  all  of  them — sink 
them  beneath  the  sea — would  Great  Britain  be 
the  richer?  She  would  be  faced  not  merely  by 
bankruptcy,  but  by  the  starvation  of  millions  of 
her  population ;  something  like  a  third  of  it  would 


Military  Force  in  Modern  Statecraft    167 

actually  die  for  want  of  food,  or  leave  the 
country. 

What,  of  course,  we  fail  to  realize  in  this  con- 
nection is  that  trade  is  necessarily  exchange;  if 
we  are  to  sell  anything  to  anyone  the  buyer  must 
have  money.  He  can  only  obtain  that  money  by 
selling  something.  If  we  do  not  sell  we  cannot 
buy;  and  so  when  you  come  to  the  complex 
groups  embracing  all  sorts  of  trades  and  industries 
which  our  modem  nations  represent,  each  must, 
in  order  to  be  a  customer,  be  also  a  competitor. 
Roughly,  and  largely  in  the  European  nations,  he 
is  a  customer  to  the  extent  that  he  is  a  competitor. 
It  is  a  noteworthy  fact,  the  full  significance  of 
which  I  have  not  space  to  deal  with  now,  that  it  is 
occasionally  those  nations  which  most  resemble 
one  another  in  their  industrial  make  up  that  are 
mutually  the  best  customers.  Great  Britain  sells 
more  per  head  of  population  to  Belgium,  a  highly 
industrialized  nation,  than  to  Canada  or  Russia, 
mainly  agricultural  nations. 

What,  however,  I  am  dealing  with  here  is  not 
an  ignorance  of  certain  statistical  facts,  or  a  failure 
to  understand  certain  obscure  points  in  econo- 
mics; not  the  use  of  mere  loose  language,  but  a 
fundamentally  untrue  conception,  a  false  picture 
of  the  State  in  its  relation  to  the  economic  activities 
of  its  people. 

Let  me  summarize  the  general  principles  at  which 
we  have  arrived.  Moral  conflicts,  like  the  reli- 
gious wars,  arise  necessarily  from  a  certain  con- 


1 68  Arms  and  Industry 

ception  of  the  relations  of  force  to  religious  facts; 
a  certain  conception  as  to  what  force  could  do  in 
the  way  of  protecting  religious  truth  from  error  or 
compelling  the  acceptance  of  religious  truth.  As 
soon  as  it  was  realized  that  this  relationship  had 
been  misconceived,  that  force  could  neither  pro- 
tect nor  impose  truth,  physical  conflict  in  the 
domain  of  spiritual  affairs  came  to  an  end. 

So  with  military  conflict  concerning  material 
things— food,  wealth,  prosperity.  It  arises  from  a 
quite  definite  conception  of  the  relation  of  military 
force  to  those  things,  the  belief  that  military 
force  can  ensure  or  promote  them.  When  it  is 
realized  that  military  force  is  ineffective  or  irrele- 
vant to  these  ends,  its  employment  as  a  means 
thereto  will  cease,  as  it  has  already  ceased  in  the 
sphere  of  spiritual  things. 

I  think  I  hear  you  say  one  word:  "Police." 
Well,  what  is  the  role  of  the  police;  how  does  it 
differ  from  that  of  an  army? 

What  the  role  of  the  police  here  in  London  is  we 
know  perfectly  well:  it  is  to  prevent  one  citizen 
using  force  against  another,  to  run  in  burglars, 
and  so  forth.  So  doing,  it  is,  properly  speaking, 
a  poHce  force.  It  would  become  an  army  if  it 
were  to  march  against  another  police  force,  that  of 
Birmingham  or  Liverpool.  Police  forces  are  not 
used  one  against  the  other — armies  are. 

Now,  I  quite  admit  that  armies  are  often  used  as 
a  police  force  for  the  maintenance  of  order.  Our 
army  is  so  used  in  India,  and  is  doing  by  that 


Military  Force  in  Modern  Statecraft    169 

means,  I  believe,  a  work  invaluable  to  civilization. 
But  that  is  not  the  problem  of  a  European  war. 
Germany  does  not  need  to  maintain  order  in 
Great  Britain,  we  do  not  need  to  maintain  order  in 
Germany;  the  impending  or  threatened  conflict 
between  these  two  countries  has  nothing  what- 
ever to  do  with  the  problem  of  policing. 

If,  then,  this  political  conflict  between  nations  is 
merely  due  to  a  misconception,  analogous  to  that 
which  produced  the  conflict  between  opposing 
religious  groups,  what  is  the  place  of  military  force 
in  statecraft? 

More  and  more  surely  are  statesmen  coming  to 
realize  that  its  employment  for  positive  ends — 
promotion  of  well-being  as  against  other  States — 
is  ineffective.  The  German  school,  of  which 
General  von  Bernhardi  is,  I  believe,  a  fair  type,  is 
a  declining  school,  and  recent  events  seem  to 
indicate  surely  that  no  European  Government  is 
bent  upon  aggression.  But  it  is  impossible  to 
forecast  what  influences  may  direct  the  action  of 
the  Governments — some  unforeseen  turn  of  events 
may  render  one  aggressive — and  military  force  is 
used  to-day  for  the  negative  purpose  of  making  it 
impossible  for  force  to  be  used  against  us.  Armies 
have  just  one  use  as  between  civilized  nations:  to 
prevent  their  being  used.  The  military  force  of 
one  State  is  destined  to  nullify  that  of  another 
State,  and  so  reduce  both  to  paralysis.  The  work 
of  the  good  soldier,  like  the  work  of  the  good 
doctor,  tends  to  abolish  his  own  job. 


170  Arms  and  Industry 

But  I  hope  you  will  note  the  reservation  that  I 
make — ^as  between  civilized  nations.  In  another 
sphere  I  believe  there  will  long  be  employment  for 
the  soldier — in  the  sort  of  work  that  we  have  done 
in  India  and  in  Egypt.  This  is  police  work, 
properly  speaking,  and  most  of  the  military  force 
of  the  world  will,  perhaps,  at  no  very  distant  date, 
be  transformed  slowly  into  police  force.  If  Europe, 
a  generation  or  two  since,  had  recognized  the 
truth  of  this  general  proposition,  that  military 
power  can  only  be  positively  useful  in  the  main- 
tenance of  order,  I  think  that  the  chief  Powers  of 
Europe  would  before  this  have  composed  their 
differences  and  made  common  cause  against  cer- 
tain evils  which  threaten  them  all  alike.  Had  we 
seen  more  of  the  truth  at  which  I  am  driving,  our 
policy  with  reference  to  Russia,  for  instance,  might 
have  taken  the  tiim  seventy  years  ago  which  it  is 
now  taking,  and  by  so  doing  might  have  avoided 
a  war  fought  to  maintain  the  integrity  of  Turkey, 
have  given  us  a  larger  place  in  the  coimcils  of  the 
world,  and  perhaps  prevented  over  large  areas  of 
the  world's  surface,  a  mass  of  abominable  suffering 
which  does  not  reflect,  I  think  you  will  admit,  very 
flatteringly  upon  European  statecraft. 

I  wonder  whether  you  would  excuse,  in  conclu- 
sion, a  personal  word.  I  am  a  Pacifist  in  the  sense 
that  I  believe  men  will  best  carry  on  their  fight 
against  Nature  by  ceasing  bootlessly  to  fight  each 
other;  that  man's  advance  will  be  marked  largely 
to  the  degree  to  which  he  can  close  his  ranks  against 


Military  Force  in  Modern  Statecraft    171 

the  common  enemy  that  is  forever  trying  to 
destroy  him.  But  I  beg  you  to  note  this,  that 
because  I  do  not  beHeve  in  force,  I  do  beHeve  in 
defence — that  is  to  say,  I  do  not  believe  in  allowing 
the  other  man's  force  to  settle  any  matter  in 
dispute;  and  for  this  reason  I  have  taken  the 
ground  that,  in  performing  this  function  at  least — 
in  preventing  force  being  used — the  soldier's  work 
is  useful.  I  have  never  taken  the  ground  that  the 
difference  between  myself  and  those  who  do  not 
agree  with  me  on  this  matter  is  necessarily  one  of 
moral  conceptions  at  all.  I  believe  that  it  is  one 
of  intellectual  conceptions,  and  should  be  stated  in 
intellectual  terms.  Those  of  you  who  may  have 
done  me  the  honour  to  read  my  books,  know  that 
I  have  laid  very  great  emphasis  on  this  point,  and 
have  also  tried  to  do  full  justice  to  all  that  the 
soldier's  profession  has  of  abnegation,  dedication 
to  an  unselfish  purpose,  discipline  and  duty;  and 
you  will  know  also,  that  in  doing  what  I  can  to 
make  known  what  I  believe  to  be  true,  I  have  been 
prompted,  not  by  indifference  to  national  needs 
or  national  security,  but  by  the  conviction  that 
the  emergence  of  these  truths  will  add  to  our 
national  security,  and  furnish  surer  means  for  the 
satisfaction  of  our  real  needs. 

I  believe  that  war  is  what  Mr.  Bonar  Law  has 
called  it:  the  failure  of  human  wisdom;  that  the 
employment  of  force  as  between  civilized  men  is  a 
mistake.  It  can  be  eliminated  from  human  inter- 
course in  two  ways:  by  confronting  force  on  one 


172  Arms  and  Industry 

side  with  equivalent  force  on  the  other,  so  that 
neither  can  be  employed.  That  way  is  the 
soldier's  way.  However  costly,  burdensome,  and 
dangerous  it  may  be,  it  may  be  the  necessary  price 
of  human  imperfection.  But  there  is  another 
way :  by  the  growing  realization  on  the  part  of  those 
who  provoke  the  use  of  force,  that  it  is  ineffective, 
a  realization  that  will  come  of  the  slow  and  piece- 
meal enlargement  of  understanding  on  this  subject. 
If  that  way  is  ever  to  play  its  part  in  the  elimina- 
tion of  political  war,  as  it  has  already  played  its 
part  in  the  elimination  of  religious  war,  it  will  be 
because  those  who  think  they  see  an  error  or  mis- 
conception in  the  matter,  do  their  best,  however 
feebly  and  obscurely,  to  clear  it  up.  That  may  not 
be  specifically  the  soldier's  work,  but  it  is  some- 
body's work;  and  I  believe  that  soldiers  who  re- 
spect honest  endeavour,  even  though  it  may  not 
be  in  their  own  field,  will  not  disparage  it. 


V 

"two    keels   to   one   not   enough" 

(Notes  of  a  Debate  at  the  Cambridge  Union.) 

Early  in  1912  the  President  of  the  Cambridge 
Union  wrote  asking  whether  I  would  oppose  the 
following  motion  to  be  moved  by  the  President  of 
the  Navy  League  of  Great  Britain : 

"  That  the  safety  of  the  British  Empire  and  its  trade 
depends  on  an  unquestioned  British  Naval  superiority, 
maintained  upon  the  basis  of  two  keels  to  one  of 
capital  ships  against  the  next  strongest  European 
Power,  and  the  full  necessary  complement  of  smaller 
craft." 

To  the  invitation  of  the  President  of  the  Cam- 
bridge Union,  I  replied  that  I  would  not  oppose  the 
motion  as  it  stood,  but  would  do  so  if  it  were  made 
to  read  as  follows : 

"That  the  safety  of  the  British  Empire  and  its  trade 
can  only  be  secured,  "  etc. 

The  Cambridge  Granta  gives  the  following 
summary  of  the  proposer's  speech : 

173 


174  Arms  and  Industry 

"  Mr.  R.  Yerburgh,  M.P.,  President  of  the  Navy 
League,  began  by  reminding  the  House  that  in  the 
past  our  navy  had  preserved  the  liberties  of  Great 
Britain  against  foreign  aggression,  had  won  for 
us  our  Empire,  and  had  saved  Europe  from  the 
domination  of  Napoleon.  Since  then  it  had  not 
been  used  in  an  aggressive  manner;  rather  it  had 
performed  the  functions  of  a  police  force  on  the 
high  seas.  Our  forefathers  had  left  us  a  great 
heritage  and  great  responsibilities.  The  only 
way  in  which  to  preserve  our  heritage  and  fulfil 
our  responsibilities  was  to  maintain  a  large  navy ; 
on  that  depended  our  Empire,  our  wealth,  and  our 
liberty. 

"What  standard  was  required  in  the  navy  if  it 
was  to  fulfil  its  duties?  It  must  be  strong  enough 
to  take  the  offensive  defensive.  In  the  earlier  part 
of  the  nineteenth  century  the  navy  was  allowed 
to  fall  '^below  the  requisite  strength;  but  in  the 
'sixties,  spurred  by  the  fear  of  attack  by  France, 
those  who  were  responsible  for  our  naval  defences 
woke  up  and  formulated  the  two-Power  standard. 
This  standard  seemed  to  have  been  abandoned  in 
recent  years,  and  the  motto  was  that  it  was  never 
safe  to  leave  the  defences  of  the  country  to  the 
Government  of  the  day.  You  must  have  a  stand- 
ard by  which  to  judge  their  provisions.  Hence 
Mr.  Stead  had  formulated  the  two-keels-to-one 
standard,  and  the  Navy  League  had  adopted  it. 
The  arguments  in  favour  of  this  standard  were — 
first,  that  it  directed  attention  to  our  needs  in  the 


**Two  Keels  to  One  Not  Enough"      175 

North  Sea ;  second,  that  it  strengthened  the  hands 
of  the  peace  party  in  Germany.  We  had  nothing 
to  gain  from  winning  a  war — everything  to  lose  by 
being  defeated.  There  was  no  danger  of  aggression 
on  England's  part,  but  grave  cause  to  fear  that 
Germany  might  offend;  witness  Bismarck's  lack 
of  principle  and  the  action  of  Germany's  ally, 
Austria,  in  annexing  Bosnia  and  Herzegovina. 
Moreover,  Germany's  foreign  policy  was  dictated 
by  the  Emperor  and  his  advisers,  not  by  the 
people.  Hence  the  need  for  a  strong  navy.  Two 
keels  to  one  was  not  too  much,  since  the  day  when 
one  Englishman  was  equal  to  three  foreigners  was 
gone.  The  honourable  gentleman  went  on  to  show 
how  many  ships  this  country  would  have  to  build 
in  order  to  maintain  the  two-keels-to-one  standard ; 
at  present  Great  Britain  had  more  than  two  keels 
to  Germany's  one.  We  should  only  have  a  bare 
margin  for  safety  over  Germany  and  her  allies  in 
the  future.  The  expense  was  no  difficulty,  for  the 
Dominions  oversea  would  help  us  to  bear  the 
burden. " 


The  following  is  a  report  of  the  speech  in  oppo- 
sition to  the  motion  supplemented  by  my  notes  at 
the  time: 

This  is  not  an  easy  motion  to  oppose — anyhow 
for  me  to  oppose — because  I  am  not  a  non-resister ; 
I  believe  that  aggression  should  be,  and  must  be, 
resisted,  and  I  would  vote  any  sum  necessary  to 


176  Arms  and  Industry 

that  purpose — to  the  last  penny  and  the  last  man. 
And  yet  I  am  going  to  oppose  this  motion,  because 
as  it  stands  it  embodies  a  pernicious  and  dangerous 
doctrine,  and  I  am  going  to  indicate  an  alternative 
policy. 

My  honourable  friend  on  the  opposite  bench 
may  ask  why,  if  I  believe  in  defence,  I  oppose  a 
motion  which  aims  at  securing  it  so  completely. 
He  would  probably  urge  that  you  cannot  have  too 
much  of  a  good  thing. 

Well,  I  should  come  to  such  conclusion  if  I  did 
what  this  motion  does — ^ignore  just  half  the  facts. 

Let  me  tell  you  how  I  came  to  be  able  to  oppose 
at  all.  As  originally  submitted  to  me,  the  motion 
read  as  follows:  "That  the  safety  of  the  British 
Empire  and  its  trade  depends  on  an  imquestioned 
British  Naval  supremacy,"  etc.  Such  a  motion  I 
might  not  have  been  able  to  oppose;  but  I  altered 
the  motion  to  read  thus:  "That  the  safety  of  the 
British  Empire  and  its  trade  can  only  be  secured  by 
an  unquestioned  British  Naval  supremacy,"  etc., 
and,  frankly,  I  was  a  little  surprised  that  the 
honourable  proposer  should  have  accepted  this 
change  without  protest.  Not  only  did  he  not 
protest,  but  the  speech  which  he  has  just  delivered 
has  not  given  the  faintest  indication  that  he  has 
considered  the  reasons  which  prompted  me  to 
make  the  change.  For  him,  presiimably,  arma- 
ments are  the  last  and  final  and  only  basis  of  peace, 
and  other  means  are  not  worth  serious  discussion.- 
The  motion  itself,  the  change  which  I  made,  the 


"Two  Keels  to  One  Not  Enough"      177 

proposer's  failiire  to  note  that  change,  the  speech 
which  he  has  just  deHvered — all  alike  show  that 
he  believes  that  by  armaments  and  force  alone 
can  problems  of  the  relationship  of  nations  be 
solved.  And  it  is  because  he  believes  this,  because 
the  motion  implies  that  no  other  efforts  are  worth 
while  or  could  ever  succeed,  that  I  oppose  it. 
For  not  only  will  armaments  alone  not  solve  the 
problem  of  international  relationship,  but  we  shall 
never  get  near  to  solution,  and  this  Empire  will 
never  be  really  secure,  until  other  means  are  applied 
as  persistently  as  in  the  past  we  have  applied  the 
remedy  of  force.  But,  not  only  does  the  motion 
ignore  the  fact  that  the  only  satisfactory  solution 
of  a  misunderstanding  is  to  understand  it,  but 
even  as  a  statement  for  safety  by  armaments  it 
ignores  one-half  of  the  whole  problem. 

This  problem  of  defence  is  a  problem  which  must 
include  two  parties  and  two  groups  of  factors,  and 
the  motion  just  simply  and  gently  ignores  one 
party  and  one  group  of  factors.  The  nearest  that 
it  approaches  to  including  the  two,  is  its  implied 
admission  that  our  policy  must  be  determined  by 
our  rival's  policy;  but  it  is  sublimely  oblivious  of 
the  fact  that  our  rival's  policy  is  determined  by 
ours,  or,  indeed,  that  it  is  guided  by  a  like  group  of 
motives.  In  other  words,  a  problem  which  in- 
cludes two  parties  is  stated  in  terms  of  one. 

I  think  I  can  make  what  I  mean  by  that  quite 
.clear.  Just  recently  we  had  it  laid  down  by  a 
Cabinet  Minister  that  "the  way  to  make  peace 


178  Arms  and  Industry- 

secure  is  to  be  so  strong  that  victory  over  your 
enemy  will  be  certain."  Well,  it  looks  self- 
evident,  does  it  not?  The  implication  is  that  if 
you  are  as  strong  as  all  that,  no  one  will  attack  you. 
It  is  one  of  those  political  axioms  which  we  parade 
with  serene  dogmatism  because  it  sounds  unchal- 
lengeable, one  of  those  obvious  things  which  ought 
to  be  a  guide  to  sound  national  poHcy.  Well,  let 
us  hope  that  it  will  not  be  so  obvious  that  the 
Germans  will  adopt  it.  Do  you  really  believe 
that  it  would  really  make  for  peace  if  they  did? 
You  know  it  would  make  for  war.  Yet  if  this  is 
the  best  way  for  a  nation  to  secure  peace,  are  not 
the  Germans  to  be  allowed  to  adopt  the  best  way? 
Or  is  this  one  of  those  absolute  truths  which  Provi- 
dence has  reserved  for  the  use  of  the  British  nation 
only?  Do  you  not  see  immediately  that  this  "ax- 
iom" is  only  possible  if  applied  to  one  party  to  the 
dispute?  If  you  apply  it  to  the  two,  you  are  ask- 
ing that  each  shall  be  stronger  than  the  other. 
But  war  is  a  matter  of  two  parties;  preparation 
for  war  is  a  matter  of  two  parties,  all  problems  of 
international  politics  are  matters  of  two  parties; 
and  your  principles  must  be  applicable  to  both  if 
we  are  to  find  through  them  the  solution  of  those 
problems. 

The  other  day  at  a  meeting  I  had  this  question : 
Does  Mr.  Angell  suggest  that  we  be  stronger  than 
our  enemies  or  weaker?  And  I  replied  quite 
truthfully,  that  the  last  time  I  had  been  asked  that 
question  was  by  Germans  in  Berlin.     I  begged 


"Two  Keels  to  One  Not  Enough"      179 

my  questioner  to  indicate  how  he  would  have  had 
me  reply  to  those  Germans. 

Of  course,  we  shall  make  no  progress  in  this 
matter  until  we  place  ourselves  in  the  position  of 
the  other  man.  Perhaps  it  is  too  much  to  ask  a 
President  of  the  Navy  League  to  put  himself  in  the 
German's  place.  I  suppose  it  would  be  a  derelic- 
tion of  patriotism  to  do  so.  Well,  I  am  going  to 
risk  whatever  imputation  there  may  be  in  the 
process,  and  to  place  myself  for  a  moment  in  the 
position  of  the  German,  not  for  the  purpose  of 
making  a  case  against  the  Englishman — it  is  not  a 
case  here  of  one  being  in  the  right  and  the  other  in 
the  wrong — but  the  case  that  both  are  drifting  into 
conflict  through  misunderstanding  each  the  posi- 
tion of  the  other,  and  both  the  real  nature  of  the 
relationship  which  exists  between  them. 

And,  as  that  German,  I  shall  ask  nothing  that  I 
should  not  ask  as  an  Englishman ;  and  I  shall  claim 
no  right  nor  privilege  I  would  not  just  as  readily, 
as  a  German,  accord  to  Englishmen. 

Now,  the  first  note  that  this  German  makes,  on 
reading  this  motion,  is  that  the  Englishman  is  not 
ready  thus  to  accord  to  the  German  what  the 
German  is  ready  to  accord  to  the  Englishman. 
The  very  first  thing  to  be  noted  is  that  this  motion 
deprives  the  German  of  the  right  of  self-defence 
which  the  Englishman  himself  claims. 

What  does  the  British  Navy  League  Catechism 
say?  It  says:  "How  does  a  navy  prevent  war?" 
And  the  answer  is :  "  By  manifest  strength,  showing 


i8o  Arms  and  Industry 

all  likely  enemies  that  war  is  unprofitable  for  them 
owing  to  the  difficulty  which  your  enemy  has  in 
defending  himself." 

Very  good.  I,  the  German,  demand  the  right 
to  make  myself  sufficiently  powerful  for  it  to  be 
dangerous  for  you  to  attack  me.  You — oh !  I  am 
not  bringing  the  President  into  this  discussion,  I 
am  only  sketching  a  dialogue — You,  the  English- 
man, claim  superiority  of  two  to  one  in  armaments. 
That,  my  dear  Englishman,  means  that  it  is  not 
dangerous  for  you  to  attack  me,  which,  according 
to  your  own  definition  of  defence,  I  ought  so  to 
make  it.  You  can  make  this  attack  with  absolute 
security.  I  do  not  even  claim  equality  of  arma- 
ments, only  the  right  to  build  such  armaments  as 
will  make  the  result  of  your  aggression  doubtful ; 
but  you  will  not  even  leave  me  this  poor  security. 
You  demand  an  armament  which  will  make  your 
aggression  a  mere  naval  picnic.  You  will  not 
leave  me  even  a  fighting  chance.  You  insist  upon 
having  me  absolutely  at  your  mercy.  You  deny 
to  me  what  is,  according  to  your  own  definition, 
mere  self-defence.  You  insist  that  it  is  the 
bounden  duty  of  your  patriots  to  achieve  it,  but 
you  deny,  when  you  exact  such  a  superiority  as 
you  do,  the  right  of  German  patriots  to  a  like 
defence. 

Now,  how  does  the  Englishman  meet  this  case 
of  the  German?  He  admits  that  there  is  not 
equality  here, — an  equality  of  privilege  that  is,  but 
he  says,  what  is  a  vital  necessity  to  England  is 


"Two  Keels  to  One  Not  Enough"      i8i 

merely  a  luxury  to  Germany.  But  that  will  not 
do  either.  Here  is  the  British  Navy  League 
literature  claiming  that  a  nation's  safety  should  be 
dependent,  not  upon  the  goodwill  of  foreigners, 
but  upon  its  own  strength.  Again,  you  deny  that 
right  to  Germans.  Germans  must  be  content  to 
rely  upon  the  goodwill  of  England.  How  does  the 
Englishman  meet  that  point  ?  Well,  it  was  met  the 
other  day  by  an  English  Minister,  who  said  that 
the  British  Navy  could  not  threaten  the  meanest 
Continental  village.  Well,  the  British  Navy  could, 
I  presume,  bombard  Bremen  and  Hamburg,  and 
it  can  do  something  much  more  even  than  threaten 
great  seaports — it  can  destroy  immense  wealth  in 
sea-borne  commerce,  essential  to  the  livelihood  of 
millions  of  Germans.  But  that  is  not  all.  Here  is 
the  very  father  of  the  modem  philosophy  of  sea 
power,  the  saint  by  whom  the  British  big  navy 
people  swear,  laying  down  this  doctrine: 

"  More  and  more  Germany  needs  the  assured  im- 
portation of  raw  materials,  and,  where  possible,  con- 
trol of  regions  productive  of  such  materials.  More 
and  more  she  requires  assured  markets  and  security 
as  to  the  importation  of  food,  since  less  and  less  com- 
paratively is  produced  within  her  own  borders  by 
her  rapidly  increasing  population.  This  all  means 
security  at  sea.  Yet  the  supremacy  of  Great  Britain 
in  European  seas  means  a  perpetually  latent  control 
of  German  commerce.  The  world  has  long  been 
accustomed  to  the  idea  of  a  predominant  naval  power, 
coupling  it  with  the  name  of  Great  Britain,  and  it  has 


1 82  Arms  and  Industry 

been  noted  that  such  power,  when  achieved,  is  com- 
monly often  associated  with  commercial  and  industrial 
predominance,  the  struggle  for  which  is  now  in  progress 
between  Great  Britain  and  Germany.  Such  pre- 
dominance forces  a  nation  to  seek  markets,  and,  where 
possible,  to  control  them  to  its  own  advantage  by 
preponderant  force,  the  ultimate  expression  of  which 
is  possession.  From  this  flow  two  results:  The  at- 
tempt to  possess  and  the  organization  of  force  by 
which  to  maintain  possession  already  achieved.  This 
statement  is  simply  a  specific  formulation  of  the 
general  necessity  stated ;  it  is  an  inevitable  link  in  the 
chain  of  logical  sequences:  industry,  markets,  control, 
navy  bases." 

Sir,  if  our  own  philosophy  is  right,  it  is  not  a 
luxury  for  which  Germany  strives,  but  a  vital  mat- 
ter for  her  future  welfare.  Take  this  very  signifi- 
cant fact :  The  retention  of  the  right  of  capture 
of  private  property  at  sea  is  defended  by  what 
may  be  termed  the  corsair  party,  on  the  ground 
that  to  threaten  the  enemy's  commerce  is  the  most 
powerful  form  of  pressure  which  we  can  exercise 
against  him ;  that  by  means  of  such  an  instrument 
we  can  make  him  sue  for  peace.  These  arguments 
are  used  every  day  by  the  Admiral  in  resisting  the 
movement  for  the  immunity  of  private  property 
at  sea.  But  if  this  instrument  is  as  valuable  as 
they  allege,  it  means  that  foreign  nations  are 
threatened  in  a  vital  matter  by  our  naval  force. 
You  can't  have  it  both  ways.  If  in  reality  a 
country  like  Germany  has  no  need  of  a  navy  to 


*'Two  Keels  to  One  Not  Enough"      183 

protect  her  commerce,  if  she  has  no  commerce 
that  can  be  preyed  upon  by  a  foreign  Power,  then 
our  retention  of  the  right  of  capture  is  no  use  as  an 
instrument  of  pressure.  If  it  really  is  the  means  of 
pressure  that  the  Admirals  urge,  then  the  Ger- 
mans— if  they,  like  us,  really  are  entitled  to  look 
for  their  safety  to  their  own  strength  and  not  to 
the  good-will  of  foreigners — are  in  duty  bound  to 
oppose  to  our  navy  some  force  at  least  capable  of 
checking  its  operations,  to  say  nothing  of  the  fact 
that  we  have  for  some  years  now  been  talking  of 
the  needs  for  supporting  France  with  an  expedi- 
tionary force — such  a  plea  is  made  officially  by  the 
National  Service  League.  The  way  for  Germany 
to  meet  a  British  expeditionary  force  is  by  a 
navy. 

What  is  the  situation  which  really  faces  Ger- 
mans? It  is  this:  That  a  preponderance  such  as 
that  which  this  motion  demands  enables  Britain 
to  dictate  absolutely  the  world  policy  of  Germany. 
If  Mahan  is  right,  if  our  own  philosophy  upon 
which  we  base  the  claim  for  our  sea  policy  is  right, 
the  German  sees  his  national  destinies  controlled 
absolutely  by  a  foreign  Power.  His  diplomats 
cannot  bargain  on  a  footing  of  equality  because 
they  know  that  an  overwhelming  preponderance 
of  power  must  rest  with  their  rival.  A  nation 
expanding  at  the  rate  of  a  million  a  year  is  to 
allow  its  destinies  to  drift  into  the  absolute  control, 
in  so  far  as  world-policy  is  concerned,  of  another 
and  a  rival  nation.     If  Great  Britain  can  claim  that 


184  Arms  and  Industry 

the  loss  of  the  supremacy  of  the  seas  would 
mean  for  her  quick  starvation,  Germany  can 
claim,  if  our  philosophy  is  right,  that  Great 
Britain's  domination  of  her  policy  may  mean 
slow  starvation. 

I  assume,  of  course,  that  the  proposer  of  this 
motion  gives  Germans  credit  for  qualities  as  high 
as  our  own.  Indeed,  it  is  an  essential  part  of  his 
case  that  they  are  in  no  way  inferior,  that  they  are 
a  remarkably  efficient,  alert,  resolute,  and  educated 
people.  If  they  do  not  possess  these  qualities  to  a 
high  degree,  he  would  certainly  not  ask  that  in 
this  matter  we  should  have  a  superiority  in  strength 
of  arms  of  two  to  one.  You  do  not  need  such 
superiority  as  that  against  a  man  who  is  your 
inferior. 

Now,  the  fact  that  we  cannot  assume  these 
people  to  be  our  inferiors,  that  their  boldness  and 
resolution  is  a  necessary  part  of  the  proposer's  case, 
is  a  fact  it  is  important  to  keep  in  mind. 

For  in  that  case,  this  motion  involves  two 
contradictory  propositions: 

(i)  That  our  building  will  cause  him  to  give  up, 
because  his  needs  are  less  than  ours — that  it  is  a 
"luxury"  with  him.     That  is  one. 

(2)  That  we  must  have  preponderating  force, 
because  his  imperative  needs  of  expansion,  etc.,  are 
thrusting  him  to  aggression. 

Here  is  the  dilemma,  and  it  is  a  real  one : 

Either  (i)  his  need  is  a  real  and  growing  one, 
in  which  case  he  will  keep  up  the  fight  to  the  point 


**Two  Keels  to  One  Not  Enough"       185 

of  exhaustion,  and  he  is  not  going  to  be  frightened 
by  your  threats,  and  this  talk  of  it  being  a  luxury 
for  him  is  so  much  insincerity. 

Or  (2)  his  need  is  not  a  real  one  at  all,  and  the 
whole  squabble  is  a  matter  of  nerves  and  temper 
and  misunderstanding,  in  which  case  the  most 
evident  policy  is  one  of  discussion  and  arrangement. 
You  do  not  deal  with  an  angry  man  by  shaking 
your  fist  at  him  unless  he  is  a  very  cowardly  one 
indeed,  and  I  think  we  have  agreed  that  such  an 
analogy  cannot,  and  should  not,  fit  the  German 
people. 

On  both  grounds,  therefore — that  is  to  say, 
whether  you  regard  the  presumed  aggression  of 
Germany  as  prompted  by  real  and  growing  needs, 
or  whether  you  regard  it  as  merely  prompted  by 
national  vanity  and  temper — the  policy  of  an  im- 
mense disproportion  of  power  of  this  kind  stands 
condemned.  In  the  first  case,  if  his  need  is  deep- 
seated,  he  will  hold  out  in  this  game  of  beggar-my- 
neighbour.  And  I  want  to  bring  just  this  fact  to 
your  notice.  All  the  factors  are  pushing  Germany 
and  Austria  into  closer  co-operation,  and  we  may 
be  faced  to-morrow  by  a  German  speaking  political 
entity  of  eighty  or  ninety  million  people .  And  you 
will  note  this:  the  President  of  the  Navy  League 
will  not  hear  of  us  in  these  calculations  including 
on  our  side  the  ships  of  potential  allies.  Two 
keels  to  one,  therefore,  means  this:  That  the 
burden  which  is  borne  by  four  of  your  rivals  will 
have  to  be  borne  by  one  Englishman.     Do  not  you 


1 86  Arms  and  Industry 

see  that  in  that  case  your  back  must  break  first?* 
That  Germany  can  afford  to  play  the  waiting  game, 
and  that  more  and  more  your  interest  will  centre 
on  precipitating  the  conflict  ?t    And  this,  in  reality, 

*  An  author  much  quoted  by  the  big  navy  advocates — Mr. 
Archibald  Hurd — in  his  book  "German  Sea  Power"  (John  Murray) 
has  a  chapter;  "The  Economic  Base  of  German  Naval  Policy." 
In  it  he  examines  the  question  "whether  Germany  has 
the  ability  and  the  will  to  continue  her  recent  policy  of  naval 
expansion."  The  result  of  the  inquiry  appears  to  be  as  follows. 
"It  cannot  be  doubted  that,  if  present  tendencies  remain  un- 
changed, the  (German)  Empire  will,  before  the  end  of  the  century, 
have  become  by  far  the  richest  country  in  Europe.  Long  before 
that  point  is  reached,  Germany  will  be  able  without  an  effort  to 
bear  the  weight  of  much  heavier  armaments  than  she  now  carries : 
It  is  often  said  that  she  cannot  maintain  both  the  strongest  army 
and  the  strongest  navy  in  Europe.  .  .  .  Whether  or  not  she  can 
do  this  depends  entirely  upon  her  resources  in  men,  money,  and 
manufacturing  power,  and  in  respect  of  these  three  taken  together 
she  is  probably  already  much  more  favourably  situated  than  any 
other  European  State — that  is  to  say,  if  we  leave  colonies  out 
of  the  question. " 

t  A  policy  to  which  military  expression  is  already  being  given  in 
England  as  witness  the  following  from  the  leading  article  of  The 
War  Office  Times  and  Naval  Review,  February,  1913. 

"The  Press  of  this  country  seems  to  be  either  blind  or  stupid  in 
regard  to  the  Machiavellian,  the  devilish  policy  of  Germany. 
We,  at  any  rate,  decline  to  consider  that  Power,  as  it  is  so  fre- 
quently described  in  the  newspapers  as  'a  great  and  friendly 
nation. '  .  .  . 

"If  Germany,  after  due  warning,  persists  in  the  increase  of  a 
navy  whose  avowed  object  is  to  attack  Great  Britain  and  Great 
Britain's  trade,  the  most  effective  way  of  settling  the  matter 
once  and  for  all  would  be  to  blow  the  German  Navy  out  of  the 
water.  Seeing  that  the  Anglophobists,  who  appear  to  be  in  a 
large  majority  in,  the  'Fatherland,'  propose  in  due  course — i.  e., 
when  the  German  Navy  is  sufficiently  developed — to  attack  and 
destroy  the  English  fleet,  there  does  not  appear  to  be  any  parti- 


''Two  Keels  to  One  Not  Enough"      187 

is  what  many  Germans  fear,  and  what  to  their 
minds  gives  some  sort  of  colour  to  the  invasion 
stories  Hke  those  with  which  Professor  Delbruck 
entertained  us  last  summer. 

Therefore,  not  merely  do  you  deny  him  the  right 
to  defend  himself,  but  you  ask  him  to  place  his 
destinies  in  the  hand  of  a  small  fleet,  and  you  expect 
him  to  yield  because  you  threaten  him  with  build- 
ing ships.  Sir,  let  us  be  honest  for  a  moment. 
If  another  people,  smaller  than  ourselves,  presumed 
to  take  charge  of  our  foreign  policy  and  calmly 
asked  that  our  safety  should  be  a  matter  of  their 
goodwill,  and  attempted  to  enforce  their  doctrine 
by  an  overpowering  shipbuilding  programme, 
what  should  we  do?  We  should  build  ships. 
Then  why  do  we  expect  the  Germans  to  do  any- 
thing else?  You  are  asking  another  man  to  do 
what  you  would  never  do  yourself ;  and,  if  one  does 
that,  one  assumes  that  he  is  very  craven,  or  that 
he  will  fight.  We  cannot,  and  do  not,  assume  that 
this  people  of  sixty-five  millions  are  a  craven 
people.  We  must  be  assuming,  therefore,  that  the 
logical  outcome  of  this  policy  is  conflict.  If,  there- 
fore, your  desire  is  to  avoid  conflict,  whichever 
view  of  the  case  you  take,  the  wise  course  is  to  do 
now  what  we  should  have  to  do  even  after  a  war — 
to  come  to  some  sort  of  arrangement  and  some  sort 

cular  object — in  fact,  we  do  not  deem  it  sound  policy,  calmly  to 
await  Germany's  convenience  in  the  matter.  The  plan  we 
suggest  would,  at  any  rate,  bring  matters  to  a  crisis  without 
delay." 


1 88  Arms  and  Industry 

of  understanding.  And  by  an  understanding  I  do 
not  mean  necessarily  any  formal  agreement  be- 
tween the  two  Governments.  I  mean  something 
much  more  efficacious — I  mean  a  general  enlighten- 
ment of  the  public  opinion  in  both  coimtries  as  to 
the  real  nature  of  the  supposed  conflict  between 
them.  That  is  the  real  ray  of  hope  in  the  situation. 
It  is  possible  that  my  honourable  friend  will  say 
that  such  policy  is  hopeless,  that  it  has  failed.  Sir, 
it  has  never  been  attempted.  Speaking  practi- 
cally, none  of  our  efforts  has  gone  into  this  direc- 
tion at  all.  All  our  money  and  all  our  energies 
have  gone  to  one  half  of  the  problem  only,  and 
none  whatever  to  the  other  half,  and  consequently 
the  whole  thing  has  been  distorted,  and  has  created 
what  we  know  as  the  "European  armament 
problem." 

Why  do  I  say  that  all  our  energies  have  gone 
into  one  half  of  the  problem?  Well,  I  can  illustrate 
that  by  the  presence  of  the  honourable  mover  and 
the  existence  of  the  organization  that  he  represents. 

During  his  speech  he  was  at  great  pains  to  prove 
by  quotations  from  my  own  writings  and  otherwise 
that  war  is  the  outcome  of  human  passion  and 
human  folly  in  the  field  of  international  politics. 
He  might  have  emphasized  with  truth,  as  I  have 
tried  to  do,  the  fact,  that  when  we  had  wars  in 
another  field — that  of  religion — they  were  equally 
the  outcome  of  passion,  intolerance,  and  misunder- 
standings. "You  must,"  he  says,  "look  for  the 
cause  and  explanation  of  war  in  the  folly  and 


"Two  Keels  to  One  Not  Enough"      189 

ignorance  of  mankind."  Well  then,  of  course, 
you  would  suppose  that  to  make  war  less  likely,  to 
make  ourselves  more  secure,  you  should  get  at  the 
cause  by  seeing  wherein  our  folly  consists,  and 
where  are  the  misconceptions  which  provoke 
war.  That  is  the  very  thing  that  the  honoiu"able 
mover  does  not  suggest,  to  which  he  does  not  urge 
us  to  devote  our  energies,  to  which  he  does  not 
particularly  desire  his  countrymen  to  devote  their 
energies;  and  I  am  afraid  it  is  true  of  some  of  his 
colleagues  that  it  is  the  thing  to  which  they 
parti*  ularly  desire  their  countrymen  should  not 
devote  their  energies. 

Now,  the  President  of  the  British  Navy  League 
is  necessarily,  in  point  of  intelligence  and  character 
and  readiness  to  serve  his  country,  far  above  the 
average.  I  hope  you  will  not  think  it  unseemly  if 
I  say  that  he  is  quite  obviously  above  the  average 
in  this  respect,  in  his  desire  to  do  well  by  his 
countrymen.  Yet  what  form  does  he  give  to  the  ser- 
vices that  he  furnishes  so  readily?  That  of  trying 
to  correct  what  he  tells  us  is  the  cause  of  war — that 
is  to  say,  trying  to  induce  his  countrymen  to  realize 
the  misconceptions  which  lie  at  its  base?  Not  the 
least  in  the  world.  He  deems  the  best  service  he 
can  render  his  country  is  to  urge  it  to  add  to  the 
instruments  of  war,  notwithstanding  his  certain 
knowledge  that  our  rivals  will  immediately  meet 
that  increase,  and  that  consequently  by  so  doing 
we  shall  not  in  the  least  degree  add  to  our  ultimate 
security,  but  merely  to  the  danger  of  explosion. 


190  Arms  and  Industry 

And  what  he  does,  most  of  the  best  intentioned  of 
his  countrymen  do.  The  EngHshman  of  means 
and  leisure  goes  into  the  army  or  the  navy ;  faiHng 
that,  and  yet  desiring  to  show  his  patriotism,  he 
joins  the  Navy  League  or  the  National  Service 
League.  And  the  patriotic  German  does  the  same 
thing.  That,  or  the  equivalent  of  these  things,  is 
what  they  have  been  doing  through  the  centuries 
with  this  result:  that  if  we  do  fight  it  will  be  the 
nine  thousandth  and  something  war  of  history,  as 
little  likely  to  settle  anything  as  the  preceding 
nine  thousand  odd  have  done.  All  our  efforts 
have  been  directed  to  war,  to  the  preparation  of 
war.  If  anything  like  an  equivalent  effort  had 
been  directed  to  peace,  to  the  preparation  for 
peace,  to  the  understanding  of  those  things  which 
are  needed  for  it,  to  the  overcoming  of  those 
obstacles  that  stand  in  the  way  of  it,  we  should 
have  had  peace. 

Just  make  the  money  comparison,  though  it  is 
perhaps  the  least  important  of  all,  of  the  propor- 
tion devoted  to  the  two  halves  of  this  problem. 
Civilization  spends  about  two  and  a  half  billion 
dollars  a  year  on  preparations  for  war.  It  includes 
not  merely  the  training  of  millions  of  men  who  are 
the  mere  beasts  of  burden  of  war,  but  also  the  train- 
ing of  men  of  learning,  the  foundation  of  institutions 
for  the  study  of  the  science  of  war,  the  systematiza- 
tion  of  this  science,  thoroughly  and  elaborately. 
How  much  do  we  spend  on  the  systematization  of 
the  scientific  organization  of  the  world  ?    On  the  en- 


*'Two  Keels  to  One  Not  Enough"      191 

dowment,  for  instance,  of  International  Law,  the  eco- 
nomic organization  of  that  World  State  which  we 
know  to  be  growing  up  ?  Why,  in  all  the  world,  you 
will  not  find  devoted  to  such  objects  the  price  of  the 
smallest  battleship.  We  get  tens  of  thousands  of 
men  of  culture  and  education  giving  trained  atten- 
tion to  war,  going  out  to  war.  How  many  are  the 
missionaries  and  soldiers  going  out  to  fight  the 
battle  against  ignorance  in  this  matter;  giving 
their  lives  to  fight  the  crimes,  and  the  lying  and 
the  silly  hatreds  that  mark  misunderstandings  in 
this  field ;  going,  if  you  like,  into  the  foreign  wilds, 
if  you  believe  there  is  no  political  ignorance  in  this 
matter  to  clear  up  in  our  own  country. 

You  take  the  ground  perhaps,  that  it  is  im- 
possible to  do  anything  useful  in  this  field,  to 
change  public  opinion.  You  may  invoke  what  has 
already  been  invoked,  the  rebelliousness  of  human 
nature  and  human  opinion  to  any  change  by  argu- 
ment, persuasion,  and  discussion. 

It  is  curious,  that  this  doctrine  of  the  impossi- 
biHty  of  affecting  conduct  by  argument  and 
discussion  is  only  invoked  as  against  Pacifism. 
When  it  is  a  matter  of  getting  more  ships  or  a 
larger  army,  the  statesmen,  or  those  who  control 
them,  can  always  manage  to  create  and  organize 
opinion.  When  Admiral  Tirpitz  decided  that 
Germany  was  to  have  a  great  navy,  he  knew  that 
the  first  thing  to  do  was  to  create  a  public  opinion, 
and  he  promptly  created  it  in  a  very  thorough- 
going and  systematic  manner.     He  started  the 


192  Arms  and  Industry 

German  Navy  League,  saw  that  it  was  subsidized, 
inspired  patriotic  writers,  entertained  professors, 
made  friends  with  the  newspaper  men,  had  the 
Krupps  buy  up  a  newspaper  or  two,  so  that  in  less 
than  ten  years  German  opinion  had  formulated  its 
demand  for  a  great  navy,  and,  of  course,  the 
Government  had  to  be  guided  by  so  definitely 
expressed  a  national  demand.  When  orders  are 
slack  at  Krupps,  there  is  no  difficulty  in  arranging 
that  the  French  agents  of  that  enterprising  firm 
shall  circulate  in  French  newspapers  statements  as 
to  the  impending  increase  of  French  armaments, 
which  are  promptly  reproduced  (with  a  new  coat 
of  paint)  in  the  German  Press.  In  England  we 
have  not  one  Navy  League,  but  at  least  two. 
When  our  great  soldiers  want  conscription,  they 
do  not  wait  for  public  opinion — they  make  it. 
Lord  Roberts — Earl  and  Field-Marshal — takes 
the  stump,  addresses  great  popular  audiences,  is 
most  efficiently  stage-managed;  and  for  ten  years 
the  organization  which  he  patronizes  has  been 
industriously  at  work,  doing  what  must  always  be 
done  as  a  precedent  to  any  new  action  whatsoever, 
changing  the  minds  of  men  to  a  lesser  or  greater 
degree. 

Here  are  these  two  great  imofficial  bodies,  the 
British  and  the  German  Navy  Leagues,  and  their 
activities  just  illustrate  the  defect  which  at  present 
stands  in  the  way  of  progress  in  this  matter — the 
blindness  to  one  half  of  the  problem,  the  blind 
philosophy  at  the  bottom  of  the  whole  notion 


"Two  Keels  to  One  Not  Enough"      193 

which  dictates  the  relationship  of  nations.  Why 
are  those  two  Leagues  not  conferring  together 
for  purposes  of  getting  at  an  understanding  of 
the  poHcy  behind  armaments?  They  admit  that 
armaments  depend  upon  poHcy,  that  the  poHcy  of 
one  is  bound  up  with  the  poHcy  of  another ;  and  yet 
poHcy  is  the  one  thing  that  they  have  never  dis- 
cussed together.  Why  should  there  not  be  a 
section  of  intelligence,  a  section  of  education, 
what  you  will,  existing  in  both  of  these  two  great 
bodies,  the  whole  aim  of  which  would  be  for  each 
to  understand  something  of  the  motives  which 
were  prompting  the  action  of  the  other?  They 
could  do,  since  they  are  untrammelled  by  gov- 
ernmental and  diplomatic  restrictions,  what  Gov- 
ernments are  unable  to  do.  They  have  not 
done  it,  of  course,  because,  as  I  said,  both  are 
dominated  by  a  blindness  to  half  the  factors  of 
the  case. 

Do  you  suppose  that  if  for  every  year  during  the 
seventeen  years  they  have  existed,  these  two  bodies 
had  met  thus  to  discuss  policy,  to  discuss  the  why 
and  wherefore  of  the  armaments  at  all,  we  should 
now  be  faced  by  the  present  condition  of  this 
problem? 

You  will  say  that  it  is  hopeless  for  great  nations 
to  agree  not  to  use  force,  the  one  against  the 
other,  that  the  whole  idea  is  chimerical.  Well,  I 
will  prove  to  you  not  merely  that  it  is  not  chi- 
merical, but  that  it  has  been  realized  in  full  in  very 

important  and  thorny  cases ;  that  the  greatest  se- 
13 


194  Arms  and  Industry 

curity  is  obtained  in  replacing  armaments  by- 
understanding. 

Forty  or  fifty  years  ago,  as  you  can  prove  for 
yourself  if  you  read  certain  Parliamentary  debates 
of  the  time,  England  believed  herself  threatened  by 
the  growth  of  another  Power,  a  Power  which  has, 
in  fact,  become  far  greater  than  Germany,  and 
spends  more  money  on  her  navy  than  does  Ger- 
many. She  is  able  to  threaten  us  at  far  more 
points;  in  fact,  she  could  do  us  very  grievous 
damage. 

The  Power  to  which  I  refer  is,  of  course,  the 
United  States  of  America.  We  seem  for  the 
moment  quite  to  have  overlooked  the  fact 
that  the  United  States  is  the  most  portentous 
industrial  and  political  rival  Great  Britain  pos- 
sesses. Just  think:  it  represents  a  homogene- 
ous political  entity  of  ninety  millions — to-day  the 
greatest  and  most  powerful  in  the  world  when  we 
consider  the  high  average  of  activity  and  efficiency 
of  the  people ;  to-morrow,  perhaps,  dominating,  by 
virtue  of  closer  relations  with  Canada  on  the 
north,  Mexico  on  the  south,  and  the  control  of  the 
Panama  Canal,  half  a  hemisphere  and  populations 
running  into  one  hundred  and  fifty  millions,  with 
resources  immeasurably  greater  than  those  at  the 
disposal  of  any  other  single  Government — a  Gov- 
ernment with  which  we  have  been  twice  at  war  in 
the  past,  a  people  comprising  elements  deeply  hos- 
tile to  ourselves.  This  incalculable  political  force 
is  able  to  harass  us  at  fifty  points — navigation 


"Two  Keels  to  One  Not  Enough"     195 

through  the  Panama  Canal,  the  relation  of  our 
colonies  in  the  Antilles  with  the  continent,  our 
Eastern  trade  as  it  affects  the  Philippines,  trans- 
continental transit  to  Australia,  to  mention  only  a 
few.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  points  of  contact  and 
of  difference  with  our  European  rivals  are  trifling 
in  comparison.  Surely  all  this,  as  much  on  the 
economic  as  on  the  political  side,  constitutes  a 
rival  immeasurably  more  disturbing  than  any 
which  has  troubled  our  sleep  within  the  last  few 
decades — France,  Russia,  Germany, 

How  have  we  protected  ourselves  from  the 
aggression  of  this  still  greater  Power?  We  have 
protected  ourselves  by  the  only  means  that  will  ever 
give  us  permanent  national  safety — a  better  under- 
standing of  the  real  character  of  the  relationship 
between  nations.  Here  enlightened  opinion  gives 
security .  Our  greatest  colonial  possession  runs  par- 
allel to  the  borders  of  the  United  States  of  America 
for  three  thousand  miles,  and  it  is  the  most  striking 
fact  in  the  illustration  of  these  problems,  with  which 
we  are  dealing,  that  it  is  the  only  international 
frontier  in  the  world  which  does  not  possess  a 
fort,  nor  as  much  as  a  gun.  Are  we  threatened 
by  our  defencelessness?  The  one  Power  that 
threatens  us  least  is  the  United  States. 

In  that  connection  I  should  like  to  recall  some- 
thing that  is  not  generally  remembered  with 
reference  to  the  work  of  Cobden.  I  am  often 
told  that  because  wars  have  followed  Cobden's 
death,  therefore    his   work   for   peace   has   been 


196  Arms  and  Industry 

useless.  Well,  here  is  one  fact:  At  a  time  when 
feeling  against  the  Northern  States  was  very  con- 
siderable in  Great  Britain,  and  great  difficulties  had 
arisen,  a  bill  had  been  drafted  for  fortifying  the 
Canadian  frontier  with  Martello  towers  and  re- 
scinding the  Rush-Bagot  Treaty,  by  which  neither 
Power  puts  battleships  on  the  Great  Lakes.  When 
this  proposal  came  up  Cobden  was  ill,  but  he  never- 
theless came  to  London  to  fight  it  tooth  and  nail, 
and  he  scotched  it.  But  do  you  believe  that  if 
we  had  put  battleships  on  the  Lakes,  that  if  we 
had  built  those  fortifications  along  the  frontier, 
that  if  we  had  had  a  great  British  army  in  Canada, 
and  that  if  all  this  explosive  material  had  been 
lying  around  when  all  such  difficult  and  thorny  ques- 
tions of  the  yl/a^awa  claims,  the  seizure  of  the  South- 
em  Delegates,  the  Venezuelan  imbroglio,  arose — 
do  you  really  believe  that  there  would  have  been 
no  explosion,  if  explosive  material  had  been  there? 
Do  you  really  believe  that  if  we  had  had  warships 
confronting  one  another  or  armies  confronting  one 
another  during  the  last  forty  years  on  the  North- 
American  Continent,  we  should,  the  year  after  this, 
be  celebrating  the  centenary  of  Anglo-American 
peace?  Do  you  really  believe  that  if  we  had  had 
these  battleships  or  these  armies  we  should  have 
been  more  secure  in  Canada?^     You  know  that  we 

'The  Times  of  October  9,  18 13,  has  the  following  comment 
concerning  the  naval  engagements  on  the  Great  Lakes  which  had 
just  taken  place: 

"  We  are  confirmed  in  the  opinion  we  have  already  stated,  that  our 


"Two  Keels  to  One  Not  Enough"      197 

should  have  been  less  secure  and  that  in  all  human 
probability  we  should  have  lost  Canada.  I  am 
aware,  of  course,  that  no  positive  data  can  be 
brought,  that  we  are  discussing  only  probabilities, 
but  this  we  can  say :  If  explosive  material  is  there, 
it  may  go  off — if  it  is  not  there  it  can't  go  off.  My 
policy  makes  peace  certain — the  other  at  least 
uncertain.  You  may  say  that  it  is  because  of  the 
similarity  of  speech  and  language  and  origins  that 
we  are  able  thus  without  armies  to  keep  the  peace 
with  our  neighbours  in  North  America.  That  con- 
clusion, which  is  usually  drawn,  is  precisely  the 
contrary  to  which  the  obvious  facts  point.  That 
similarity  of  origin  has  created  points  of  contact. 
There  has  never  during  this  himdred  years  been 

naval  pre-eminence  on  the  Lakes  is  not  yet  effectually  established. 
In  numbers,  indeed,  it  would  seem  that  we  are  already  superior;  fort 
besides  the  four  American  schooners  already  mentioned  as  lost,  two 
others  have  been  sent  into  Niagara  as  unfit  for  service  ;  but  whilst  a 
hostile  squadron  braves  our  flag,  whilst  it  ventures  out  of  port  to 
court  a  contest,  we  have  not  that  command  of  the  Lakes  which  it  be- 
fits our  naval  character  and  concerns  our  most  essential  interests  to 
maintain.  We  say  not  this  as  implying  any  doubt  of  the  ultimate 
event,  or  any  diffidence  in  that  department  of  the  Government 
to  whose  care  the  necessary  arrangements  for  the  attainment  of 
this  object  are  committed;  but,  having  ever  anxiously  pointed 
the  attention  of  our  readers  to  the  vital  importance  of  this  part 
of  the  national  policy,  it  becomes  our  duty  to  remark  that  the 
exertion  ought  not  to  be  slackened,  when  it  is  apparently  on  the 
eve  of  being  crowned  with  the  fullest  success.  //  the  Government 
succeed  in  establishing,  as  we  have  every  reason  to  hope  it  will  es- 
tablish, the  undisputed  sovereignty  of  the  British  flag  on  the  Medi- 
terraneans of  North  America,  it  will  deserve  a  commendation  similar 
to  that  which  it  has  so  universally  received  for  rescuing  the  European 
Peninsula  from  the  dominion  of  the  Invader.'' 


198  Arms  and  Industry 

any  question  of  quarrel  between  the  United  States 
and  most  of  those  countries  divided  from  her  by- 
speech  and  common  origin;  with  France,  with 
Germany,  with  Russia,  there  have  been  but  trivial 
differences ;  all  the  troubles,  all  the  quarrels,  have 
been  with  us.  ^ 

If  therefore,  an  unarmed  situation  of  this  charac- 
ter is  possible  between  two  such  rivals  as  Great 
Britain  and  America,  what  are  the  material  facts 
which  prevent  a  similar  situation  as  between  Great 
Britain  and  Germany?  If  the  two  most  alert,  ex- 
pansive, and  enterprising  peoples  in  the  world,  the 
people  who  between  them  dominate  half  the  sur- 
face of  the  globe,  can  fight  out  their  differences 
on  other  than  the  military  field,  so  can  the  others. 

What  is  possible  with  America  is  possible  with 
Germany.  If  we  have  settled  this  problem  first 
along  the  right  lines  with  America,  it  is  mainly 
perhaps  because  we  could  not  do  anything  else,^ 
which  has  enabled  us  to  realize  that  the  solution 
we  have  been  bound  to  accept  is  the  solution  which 
it  would  have  been  best  to  accept  even  if  any 
other  had  been  possible. 

If  the  problem  of  our  relations  with  Germany  is 
a  bit  harder,  we  have  also  somewhat  more  ma- 
chinery with  which  we  can  handle  it.  Berlin  is 
nearer  than  New  York  and  the  German  people  are 

'  Incidentally  if  we  are  going  to  celebrate  the  hundred  years 
of  Anglo-American  peace  next  year,  why  should  we  not  celebrate 
the  thousand  years  of  Anglo-German  peace? 

'  See  Addendum  to  this  paper. 


*'Two  Keels  to  One  Not  Enough"      199 

more  educated  than  the  Americans.  But  we  are 
not  using  the  machinery  that  we  possess. 

Sir,  what  is  the  real  difference  between  us?  It 
is  this :  That  those  who  put  the  motion  in  its  exist- 
ing form  can  only  see  one  group  of  facts ;  we,  who 
oppose  it,  can  see  two.  They  are  afflicted  with  a 
form  of  political  astigmatism,  as  a  result  of  which 
half  the  field  of  vision  is  blotted  out.  When 
you  get  two  parties,  each  afflicted  with  this 
curious  defect — each  half  blind,  that  is — and  each 
carrying  very  explosive  machines,  accidents  of  a 
very  nasty  kind  are  likely  to  occur. 

We  say:  "The  first  thing  is  to  correct  that  astig- 
matism." Our  opponents  say:  "Oh,  don't  worry 
about  that.  The  great  thing  is  to  have  a  ma- 
chine that  will  make  a  bigger  explosion  than  the 
other  fellow's."  And  it  does  not  seem  to  distress 
them  at  all  that  in  the  explosion  both  are  going  to 
be  blown  to  smithereens  anyhow. 

Sir,  this  motion  makes  no  provision  for  correct- 
ing that  defective  vision,  and  that  is  why  I  oppose 
it.  So  long  as  that  defect  exists,  the  more  explo- 
sive each  makes  his  engine,  the  greater  does 
the  danger  to  each  become.  It  is  not  the  line  of 
safety ;  it  is  the  line  of  catastrophe. 

[The  motion  was  lost  by  203  to  183.] 


200  Arms  and  Industry 


ADDENDUM 

I  had  occasion  to  illustrate  the  point  that  our 
abandonment  of  armament  rivalry  with  America  is 
due  not  to  any  absence  of  occasion  for  conflict,  but 
rather  to  the  fact  that  fighting  is  obviously  futile, 
by  the  following  article  written  at  the  time  of  the 
conflict  over  the  Panama  tolls,  and  which  the  editor 
to  whom  I  sent  it  headed,  aptly  enough: 

WHY  NOT  FIGHT? 

THE  PARADOX  OF  PANAMA 

When  Germany  has — 

1 .  Sent  us  an  ultimatum,  as  offensive  in  its  form  as 
in  its  matter,  summoning  us  on  pain  of  instant  hos- 
tilities to  submit  the  dispute  concerning  the  Siamese 
boundary  to  the  decision  of  a  committee  appointed 
by  the  Kaiser. 

2.  Notified  us  that  the  acquisition  of  real  estate 
by  English  companies  or  persons  on  any  part  of  the 
coasts  of  Continental  Europe,  which  could,  in  the 
opinion  of  the  German  Government,  be  employed  for 
strategic  purposes  will  be  regarded  as  an  "unfriendly 
act"  and  a  violation  of  the  Hohenzollern  doctrine. 

3.  Through  the  mouth  of  the  Chancellor  an- 
nounced  that   the   real   motive   behind   the   recent 


"Two  Keels  to  One  Not  Enough"     201 

revision  of  the  tariff  of  the  German  African  colonies 
is  the  final  annexation  of  British  South  Africa. 

4.  Announced  that  the  crew  taken  from  the  British 
ship  recently  wrecked  in  the  North  Sea  will  be  detained 
by  the  German  police  in  order  that  the  German 
Government  may  make  due  inquiry  into  the  negligent 
methods  of  the  British  Board  of  Trade. 

5.  And,  finally,  has  notified  us  that  rebellions 
having  broken  out  among  certain  Sultanates  and 
Khanates  along  the  route  of  the  Bagdad  railway,  the 
German  Government  has  decided  to  take  the  respect- 
ive Khans  and  Sultans  under  its  protection ;  to  acquire 
definitely  a  railroad  zone  along  the  whole  length  of  the 
projected  line;  to  build  such  line;  to  fortify  its  termini, 
to  arrange  for  the  free  transport  of  German  goods  over 
the  said  line,  the  upkeep  of  which  will  be  defrayed  by 
the  added  charges  on  British  goods ;  and  further  that 
as  most  of  these  acts  are  in  violation  of  existing  treaties, 
those  treaties  are  henceforth  considered  null  and  void 
and  contrary  to  the  German  Constitution;  and  that 
such  of  the  foregoing  acts  as  violate  in  addition  to  the 
treaties  the  comity  and  civilized  intercourse  of  nations 
shall  be  considered  as  covered  by  the  HohenzoUem 
doctrine  aforesaid,  which  is  hereby  so  extended  as 
to  cover  them. 

When,  I  say,  Germany  has  done  these  things,  we 
shall  then  at  last  know  what  we  are  going  to  fight 
about,  and  the  Anglo- German  war  would  have  an 
infinitely  greater  justification  and  cause  than  most  of 
the  wars  of  history. 

Well,  a  Power  greater  than  Germany,  in  a  position 
to  do  us  far  more  grievous  damage,  with  a  large  navy, 
has,  according  to  the  general  British  view,  done  all 
these  things,  or  the  American  equivalent  for  them 


202  Arms  and  Industry 

during  the  last  decade  or  so  (for,  of  course,  the  Power 
in  question  is  the  United  States).*  But  we  have  not 
gone  to  war,  we  shall  not  go  to  war,  we  are  not  even 
thinking  of  war. 

And  it  is  not  because  "blood  is  thicker  than  water. " 
For  when  the  blood  was  a  good  deal  thicker,  when 
America  really  was  of  English  blood  which  it  now  is 
not,  we  went  to  war,  not  once  but  twice;  and,  curiously 
enough  we  fought  side  by  side  with  Germans  (who 
have  never  been  our  enemies  in  war  but  always  our 
allies)  against  Americans.  So  it  is  not  for  that 
reason  that  we  submit  to  affronts  from  America 
which,  if  committed  by  Germany,  would  make  war 
inevitable. 

The  reason  why  we  shall  not  go  to  war  is  because  war 
would  be  ineffective ;  we  could  not  impose  our  will  by 
war;  America  is  not  only  impregnable  in  so  far  as 
military  force  is  concerned,  but  what  is  perhaps  more 
important  in  this  connection  she  is  quite  obviously 
impregnable.  We  could,  it  is  true,  destroy  her  navy, 
bombard  her  ports,  blockade  her  coasts,  and  by  so 
doing  create  a  position  far  more  onerous  for  us  than 
for  her.  She  would  be  embarrassed,  we  should  starve 
— Lancashire  from  lack  of  cotton,  other  parts  of  our 
population  from  high  prices  of  food;  our  finances 
would  be  chaotic  from  the  havoc  which  this  state  of 
war  would  make  with  the  British  millions  sunk  in 

*  I.e.,  (i)  The  Venezuelan  Boundary  Note  of  Secretary  Olney; 
(2)  the  recent  Bill  for  forbidding  the  purchase  by  European  citi- 
zens of  any  real  estate  on  the  Western  Hemisphere  which  could 
have  strategic  value;  (3)  Mr.  Champ  Clark's  pronouncement  re 
Canadian  reciprocity;  (4)  the  action  of  the  U.  S.  Government 
with  regard  to  the  Titanic  disaster;  (5)  the  action  of  the  United 
States  in  the  Panama  aSairs. 


"Two  Keels  to  One  Not  Enough"     203 

American  investments;  while  America,  a  self-contained 
continent,  would  be  much  less  seriously  hit.  She 
does  not  depend  upon  foreign  food ;  the  foreign  money 
she  has  already  secured ;  her  foreign  trade  is  but  a  drop 
in  a  bucket  compared  to  her  internal  trade;  she  can 
far  better  afford  to  be  locked  in  than  we  can  afford  to 
be  locked  out.  Her  navy  serves  no  earthly  purpose 
connected  with  any  vital  function  of  her  national  life. 
By  bombarding  her  coast  towns  we  could  do  some 
damage  (not  much  as  all  bombardments  prove)  to 
property  which  is  mainly  ours,  and  which  in  the  end 
our  insurance  companies  would  have  to  pay  for. 
But  beyond  that — nothing.  There  we  should  stick. 
If  we  landed  armies  they  would  be  swallowed  up  in 
the  very  spaces  of  the  continent.  Do  a  little  sum  in 
arithmetic:  If  it  took  three  years  and  nearly  half  a 
million  of  men  to  reduce  a  population  of  about  a 
hundred  thousand,  inhabiting  a  territory  which  could 
not  support  them  and  having  no  means  of  manufac- 
turing arms  and  ammunition,  how  long  would  it  take 
to  reduce  a  population  of  a  hundred  millions  (some- 
thing like  one  thousand  times  as  great)  inhabiting  a 
territory  perfectly  able  to  support  them,  possessing 
perfected  means  of  manufacturing  the  best  arms  and 
ammunition  in  the  world;  a  population,  moreover, 
which  possesses  just  those  frontier  qualities  which 
were  such  a  source  of  strength  to  the  Boers,  and  which 
has  already  beaten  us  in  war,  not  when  they  were 
numerically  superior  as  they  are  now,  but  when  we 
outnumbered  them  as  a  nation  five  to  one?  (I  am 
leaving  out  for  the  moment  the  little  element  of 
German  hostility,  which  would  alone  prevent  the 
simple  naval  seizure  of  the  canal,  even  if  the  other 
factors  did  not  make  that  impolitic — creating  more 


204  Arms  and  Industry 

trouble  than  it  would  remedy — which  they  do.) 
Certain  military  truths  which,  because  they  were 
not  quite  so  obvious  (and  which,  indeed,  were  not  so 
true  as  they  are  to-day)  had  to  be  learned  by  experi- 
ence— in  the  case  of  ourselves  in  North  America, 
Spain  in  South  America,  Napoleon  in  Russia  (and  else- 
where) ,  France  in  Mexico,  England  in  the  Transvaal, 
Russia  in  Korea,  Italy  in  Tripoli — are  now  in  certain 
cases  altogether  too  obvious  to  be  ignored,  as  they 
have  been  in  the  past,  to  the  greater  prosperity  of  the 
war  system. 

For  what  is  the  moral  of  this  Panama  business,  this 
cynical  disregard  of  solemn  treaty  obligations?  We 
are  told  that  it  is  the  failure  of  arbitration,  the  im- 
possibility of  imposing  it  or  enforcing  its  awards,  the 
absurdity  of  depending  upon  international  good  faith. 
Whereas,  of  course,  the  real  lesson  of  these  incidents 
is  the  failure  of  war,  the  war  system  and  all  that  it 
implies. 

We  may  go  to  war  for  the  things  that  do  not  matter 
(we  have  no  difference  with  Germany  and  probably 
could  not  have  anything  like  as  serious  a  one  as  those 
that  have  arisen  with  America  during  the  last  ten  or 
fifteen  years) ,  but  when  a  Great  Power  takes  an  atti- 
tude calculated  to  hamper  our  movements  and  com- 
merce with  half  the  universe  we  submit,  because  war — ■ 
in  the  preparation  for  which  the  nations  have  piled 
up  armaments  to  the  skies  and  given  an  amount  of 
collective  effort  in  excess  of  that  given  to  any  other 
object  whatsoever — is  utterly  ineffective  as  an  instru- 
ment for  enforcing  our  rights.  And  we  have  no  other 
instrument,  for  the  simple  reason  that  we  have  given 
no  equivalent  effort  to  its  creation:  the  effort  so  far 
given  to  the  education  of  the  nations  in  co-operation 


"Two  Keels  to  One  Not  Enough"     205 

and  common  action,  to  preparation  for  international 
organization,  is  but'  as  a  tea-cup  to  the  Atlantic  Ocean 
compared  to  the  time  and  energy  and  wealth  and  lives 
given  to  the  equipment  of  the  nations  for  military 
conflict.  And  though  these  immense  efforts  give  us  a 
ludicrously  ineffective  instrument,  we  refuse  to  believe 
in  any  other,  because,  although  we  have  not  bestowed 
the  thousandth  part  of  the  effort  in  perfecting  them, 
they  are  not  immediately  and  entirely  effective ! 

"America"  is  not  to  blame  in  this  matter;  the  best 
men  and  the  best  newspapers  of  America  are  as  indig- 
nant about  this  thing  as  we  are;  the  President  has 
done  what  he  can  to  deprive  the  movement  of  its 
worst  mischief.  They  realize,  indeed,  that  the  country 
as  a  whole  has  no  earthly  interest  in  violating  its 
obligations  for  the  purpose  of  relieving  a  few  shipping 
companies  of  some  of  their  business  expenses,  any 
more  than  it  would  have  an  interest  in  taxing  itself 
to  relieve  the  railroad,  or  express,  or  furniture-mov- 
ing companies,  of  some  of  theirs.  But  this  movement 
for  treaty  repudiation  owes  its  force  to,  and  (on  the 
eve  of  elections)  the  politicians  truckle  to,  a  spirit  and 
temper  and  opinion  on  the  part  of  the  great  mass 
(generally,  as  in  this  case,  reflecting  ideas  which  the 
few  at  the  top  are  outgrowing),  which  is  the  direct 
outcome  of  the  common  political  beliefs  of  Christen- 
dom, which  we  have  done  our  part  to  uphold — of  the 
military  system  which  results  and  the  efforts  to  main- 
tain it.  These  immense  armaments  of  the  nations, 
involving  as  they  do  great  sacrifices,  are  the  result  in 
each  case  of  an  active  propaganda,  encouraged  by 
governments,  organized  by  leagues  and  publicists, 
which,  because  it  takes  the  shortest  cut  to  secure  the 
immediate  object,  is  naturally  and  perhaps  excusably 


2o6  Arms  and  Industry 

one-sided  and  partial.  The  soldier  is  not  to  be  blamed 
for  doing  his  work;  it  is  the  civilian  who  should  be 
blamed  for  not  adding  the  proper  supplement.  For  if 
day  by  day,  you  urge  that  a  nation  must  depend 
upon  its  own  force  and  that  alone,  that  nations  are 
rival  units  struggling  for  predominance  in  the  world, 
that  the  country  is  in  danger  from  the  hostility  and 
success  of  foreigners — the  whole  almost  inevitably 
producing  a  patriotism  of  the  "My  country,  right  or 
wrong  "  order — you  are  not  likely  to  get,  in  the  nations, 
a  public  opinion  calculated  to  make  them  work 
harmoniously  together. 

And  if  you  do  not  believe  that  this  is  the  spirit  and 
temper  upon  which  the  American  politicians  have  their 
eye,  just  read  the  sort  of  arguments  by  which  the  baser 
sort  of  American  paper  and  the  baser  sort  of  American 
senator  support  the  Tolls  Bill.  And  part  of  the  result 
of  this  advocacy  (which  practically  holds  the  field)  is 
that  although  military  force  is  fading  more  and  more, 
we  cannot  imagine  that  any  international  action  will 
succeed  which  has  not  military  force  behind  it!  We 
cannot  see  that  civilization  has  other  methods  of 
enforcing  its  will  and  bringing  a  recalcitrant  member  to 
book;  and  if  we  could  see  it,  we  could  not  avail  our- 
selves of  such  means  since  we  cannot  act  together :  the 
temper  we  have  created  unfits  us  for  action  as  a 
community.  You  cannot  organize  so  much  as  a 
pirate  crew  until  the  members  have  agreed  to  drop  the 
use  of  force,  the  one  as  against  the  other.  If  they 
continue  to  fight  among  themselves,  they  cannot  even 
indulge  in  piracy.  Unless  the  majority  see  the  ad- 
vantage of  agreeing,  acting  in  some  sort  of  order,  no 
crew  will  be  formed,  and  the  perception  of  that 
advantage  by  the  majority  is  a  matter  of  ideas.    The 


"Two  Keels  to  One  Not  Enough"     207 

difference  between  Turkey  and  England  is  not  a 
difference  of  physical  force  or  soil — the  Turk  is  as 
strong  and  warlike  as  we  are,  and  much  of  his  country 
as  good  as  ours — but  a  difference  of  ideas.  If  you 
could  fill  Turkey  with  Englishmen,  or  give  the  Turks 
English  minds,  Turkey  would  be  as  orderly  as  York- 
shire. If  ever  the  nations  of  Christendom  are  to 
become  communities — able,  like  communities  of 
persons,  to  keep  their  unruly  members  in  order — you 
must  first  get  some  realization,  on  the  part  of  each,  of 
the  advantage  of  co-operation.  The  basic  fact  of  the 
whole  matter  is  certain  ideas  concerning  the  nature 
of  the  relations  of  one  State  to  another ;  and  until  you 
get  some  modification  of  those  ideas,  arbitration  will 
be  mainly  a  pious  aspiration.  And  when  you  have 
got  that  modification  of  those  ideas,  arbitration  will 
not  be  necessary  (or  necessary  with  infinite  rarity) 
any  more  than  it  is  necessary  between  England  and 
Australia,  which  communities,  like  England  and 
America,  have  realized  that  the  use  of  military  force 
is  unavailing.  And  that  is  the  outstanding  fact: 
whether  we  have  the  wisdom  to  create  a  new  instru- 
ment or  not,  the  old  one,  however  pathetically  we  may 
cling  to  it,  has  failed.  And  not  only  has  it  failed;  it 
produces  the  very  evil  which  it  was  forged  to  prevent. 


VI 


CONCERNING    THE    INTERNATIONAL    POLITY 
MOVEMENT 

[Early  in  191 2,  a  small  group  of  public  men  in 
England,  desirous  of  securing  for  the  fundamental 
principles  of  foreign  policy  more  scientific  considera- 
tion than  they  generally  receive,  took  steps  to  form  a 
definite  organization  to  encourage  such  study.  As  a 
result  of  these  steps  there  was  formed,  owing  largely 
to  the  generosity  of  Sir  Richard  Garton,  "The  Garton 
Foundation  to  Promote  the  Study  of  International 
Polity." 

In  September,  191 3,  the  first  general  conference  of 
those  taking  part  in  the  work  of  the  Foundation  and 
allied  bodies  or  interested  therein  was  held  in  France, 
several  French  and  German  co-workers  being  present. 
The  members  of  the  Conference  were  welcomed  in  the 
explanatory  address  which  follows.] 

What  prompted  Sir  Richard  Garton  to  found  the 
organization  which  bears  his  name?  (Inciden- 
tally, I  should  like  to  make  known  the  fact  that  it 
bears  his  name  not  as  the  result  of  any  suggestion 
from  himself,  but  of  one  coming  unanimously  from 
Lord  Esher,  Mr.  Balfour,  and  myself.) 

Why,  if  Sir  Richard  Garton  had  desired  to 
208 


The  International  Polity  Movement    209 

promote  the  idea  of  agreement  between  nations 
and  the  cause  of  international  order,  did  he  create 
another  organization,  when  there  were  hundreds 
of  Peace  Societies  already  in  existence,  conducted 
by  earnest,  disinterested  and  capable  men?  You 
may  say,  perhaps,  that  these  societies  had  not 
emphasized  the  economic  side  of  our  doctrine. 
Surely,  however,  it  would  have  been  easy  to  induce 
them  to  do  so.  The  economic  argument  for  peace 
is  not  a  new  one ;  its  case  was  stated  long  ago  with 
incomparable  lucidity  by  Cobden,  and  he  has  had 
worthy  successors  to  carry  on  the  tradition  in 
our  generation  in  men  like  Francis  W.  Hirst  of  the 
Economist. 

Unless  we  who  are  identified  with  this  newer 
movement  and  the  organizations  in  which  it  is 
embodied  can  make  this  point  clear,  I  do  not 
think  that  we  shall  have  shown  any  raison 
d'etre  at  all,  because  both  the  moral  and  the 
economic  arguments  for  peace  were  already 
being  ably  urged  by  existing  organizations. 

Perhaps  I  can  make  our  position  clear  by  a 
trivial  illustration.  Here  is  our  friend  Thomas 
who  was  greatly  wronged  years  ago  by  his  friend 
Jones,  who  after  this  particular  act  of  treachery 
disappeared.  Ever  since,  Thomas  has  declared 
that  if  Jones  should  reappear  he  would  kill  him. 
One  day  he  learns  that  Jones  has  returned  and  is 
living  in  the  same  town.  Immediately  the  friends 
of  Thomas,  in  order  to  avert  the  threatened  tragedy, 
try  to  dissuade  him  from  his  long-declared  inten- 


210  Arms  and  Industry 

tion.  One  group  make  strongly  the  moral  and 
religious  appeal,  endeavouring  to  bring  home  to 
the  would-be  murderer  all  that  he  should  remember 
on  that  side.  Another  group  confines  itself  to 
pointing  out  the  inevitable  consequences  here  in 
this  world  of  the  act  he  contemplates,  the  distress 
and  poverty  which  will  ensue  to  his  family,  and  so 
forth.  But  neither  the  one  argument  nor  the  other 
seems  likely  to  check  the  blazing  passion  of  murder 
that  bums  in  Thomas's  heart,  and  both  groups  of 
friends  feel  themselves  faced  with  probable  failure. 
There  then  appears  upon  the  scene  a  third  party 
who  says:  "It  will  perhaps  serve  some  purpose  to 
point  out  to  Thomas  that  the  man  who  has  turned 
up  is  not  the  Jones  who  wronged  him  at  all,  but 
quite  another  and  harmless  person.  Jones,  his 
enemy,  died  years  ago. " 

It  is,  I  think,  quite  evident,  that  if  this  third 
party  can  prove  their  case,  theirs  is  likely  to  be  the 
most  effective  appeal,  and  that  from  the  moment 
Thomas  really  realizes  that  this  other  Jones  is  not 
the  Jones  at  all  and  that  his  enemy  is  dead,  his 
passion  will  disappear.  It  is  true  that  you  will  not 
have  turned  him  from  his  deed  by  any  appeal  to 
his  higher  nature,  or  to  his  lower  either  for  that 
matter;  you  will  simply  have  pitched  upon  what 
is  in  the  circumstances,  the  most  relevant  fact  to 
bring  to  his  notice. 

Now  I  think  that  we  of  the  Garton  Foundation, 
in  the  facts  which  we  are  trying  to  bring  to  the 
attention  of  the  public,  do  represent  to  some  extent 


The  International  Polity  Movement    211 

that  third  party.  We  attempt  to  show  the  irrele- 
vance of  war  to  the  ends  either  moral  or  material 
for  which  States  exist.  This  irrelevance  has  never 
perhaps  been  clearly  demonstrable  until  our  day. 
The  facts  on  which  the  demonstration  mainly 
reposes  are  facts  in  large  part  peculiar  to  our 
generation.  I  do  not  think  that  the  facts  showing 
the  waste  or  wickedness  of  war  are  peculiar  to  our 
generation.  Perhaps  the  wickedness  of  war  could 
have  been  brought  more  vividly  to  the  mind  of  the 
mass  of  men  a  century  or  two  since  than  nowadays. 
Indeed,  if  there  can  be  degrees  in  such  a  matter, 
war  is  less  wicked,  perhaps  now  than  it  was;  the 
suffering  is  less,  the  mortality  is  less,  the  outrages 
are  less  (I  am  talking  of  war  by  the  Great  Powers) , 
and  it  is  not  of  such  long  duration.  Nor  is  it  true 
that,  relatively  to  our  wealth,  it  is  more  costly 
than  it  used  to  be;  the  devastation  of  warfare  in 
the  past  quite  frequently  cut  a  population  in  half 
through  sheer  starvation.  War  is  less,  not  more 
devastating,  than  it  used  to  be.  I  am  not  sure 
even  that  it  disturbs  the  affairs  of  the  world  as 
much  as  it  used  to ;  indeed  it  is  pretty  certain  that 
it  does  not,  although  its  effect,  such  as  it  is,  is  felt 
over  a  much  wider  area.  The  one  great  thing  that 
modern  conditions  have  done  is  to  enable  us  to  say 
that  war  is  irrelevant  to  the  end  it  has  in  view. 

I  will  put  it  in  another  way.  Both  of  the  first 
two  parties  of  Thomas's  friends  assumed  it  as  true 
without  query  that  the  Jones  in  question  was  the 
Jones;  their  premises  were  the  same   as  his  own. 


212  Arms  and  Industry 

Now,  even  admitting  the  premises,  there  was  a 
great  deal  they  could  tell  Thomas  to  dissuade  him 
from  his  act.  What  they  were  saying  as  to  its  wick- 
edness, its  material  results  to  himself,  was  perfectly 
true  and  a  strong  case  against  committing  it  could 
be  made  out.  And  because  that  was  a  strong  case 
and  because  there  was  a  great  deal  to  be  said,  even 
assuming  the  premises  true,  they  have  been  stating 
that  case  and  saying  those  things — and  leaving 
the  premises  unchallenged.  Their  pleas  might 
have  been  successful  and  might  be  sufficient, 
especially  if  he  had  considerable  religious  and  moral 
feelings,  or  was  cautious.  But  if  he  were  a  head- 
strong and  violent  man,  subject  to  fits  of  passion, 
apt  to  talk  of  his  honour,  apt  to  think  at  the  back 
of  his  mind,  in  his  pagan  way,  that  it  was  a  fine  thing 
to  slay  the  man  who  had  grievously  wronged  you — 
why,  the  chances  are  that  his  passion  would  break 
through.  But  if  you  could  change  the  fundamen- 
tal assumption  on  which  his  feelings  and  his 
arguments  alike  were  based  and  show  him  that 
it  was  all  a  case  of  mistaken  identity,  you  would 
almost  certainly  turn  him  from  his  course.  Very 
decent  and  humane  fellows  will  wreak  vengeance 
at  times  on  those  who  have  wronged  them;  only 
men  debased  to  the  plane  of  insanity  feel  any 
satisfaction  in  punishing  harmless,  inoffensive 
Smith  for  something  Jones  has  done.  And  the 
bulk  of  mankind  is  not  debased  to  that  plane,  or  our 
civilization,  even  such  as  it  is,  could  not  exist. 
Now  the  old  Pacifism,  in  large  part,  accepted  the 


The  International  Polity  Movement    213 

premises  on  which  the  warrior  based  his  case.  I 
admit  that  even  in  doing  so  there  was  a  great  deal 
to  be  said  against  that  case,  and  the  Pacifist  has 
been  saying  it ;  but  the  fotmdations  of  the  military- 
creed  have  remained  unshaken.  Now,  I  think  I 
can  make  that  plain  by  very  recent  events. 

We  in  England  have  just  passed  through  a 
typical  period  of  friction.  I  refer  to  the  Anglo- 
German  situation.  That  period,  with  all  the  inci- 
dents that  marked  it,  is  a  good  type  of  what  we 
and  most  European  countries  go  through  from 
time  to  time;  it  is  a  period  of  ill-feeling,  suspicion, 
enormously  increased  armaments,  and  danger  of 
war. 

Now,  there  is  no  mystery  as  to  why  the  panic 
or  ill-feeling  or  hysteria,  or  whatever  you  like  to 
call  it,  arises.  You  can  trace  its  growth  quite 
easily;  and  what  is  true  of  the  Anglo-German 
situation  is  true  of  the  Franco-German,  the  Russo- 
German,  or  of  the  past  Anglo-Russian  and  Anglo- 
French  cases. 

First  there  comes  the  allegation  that  we  are 
insufficiently  protected  against  some  alleged  hostile 
intentions — for  if  you  can't  allege  the  hostile 
intention,  you  can't  make  out  your  case  for  in- 
sufficient protection.  The  problem  of  what  is 
adequate  defence  depends  necessarily  upon  the 
force  which  is  to  be  brought  against  you;  and  if 
there  is  no  hostile  intention,  nor  likelihood  of  it, 
obviously  you  are  not  in  danger.  So  first  you  get 
the  aforesaid  statement  of  a  hostile  intention — of 


214  Arms  and  Industry 

the  march  of  Russia  upon  India,  or  the  projected 
invasion  by  the  French  Emperor,  or  the  deter- 
mination of  Germany  to  challenge  our  existence. 
In  the  Anglo-German  case  you  had  a  writer  of 
repute  like  Mr.  Frederic  Harrison,  or  a  very  popular 
one  like  Mr.  Blatchford,  declaring  that  it  is  Ger- 
many's intention  to  destroy  us,  followed,  it  may 
be,  by  a  great  public  man  like  Lord  Roberts,  who 
tells  us  with  no  sort  of  reservation  that  Germany 
will  strike  when  she  is  ready.  You  then  get,  from 
a  Cabinet  Minister  it  may  be,  a  statement  of  our 
dangerous  situation. 

Now,  how  have  Pacifists  met  these  two  points  of 
the  present  case — that  Germany  is  going  to  attack 
us  and  that  we  are  insufficiently  protected?  They 
have  met  them,  first,  by  saying  that  Germany  had 
no  intention  of  attacking  us,  and,  secondly,  that 
we  were  sufficiently  protected.  And  I  say  that  in 
doing  so  we  do  not  get  at  the  root  of  the  matter 
at  all. 

Assume  for  the  sake  of  argument  that  you  speak 
with  some  knowledge  of  German  conditions,  and 
that  you  tell  your  countrymen  that  there  exists 
no  serious  concerted  hostile  intent  against  them 
on  the  part  of  Germany.  The  unconvinced  Eng- 
lishman will  probably  ask:  "Then  why  do  the 
Germans  go  on  increasing  their  fleet?"  And  then 
you  give  the  reasons  which  justify  Germany's 
possession  of  a  fleet  quite  apart  from  any  intention 
to  attack  England.  And  then  your  industrious 
disputant  is  apt  to  rejoin:  "All  that  may  be  true, 


The  International  Polity  Movement     215 

but  what  proofs  have  you?  You  may  be  mistaken, 
and  we  must  provide  against  that  possibility. " 

Now  as  a  matter  of  fact  you  cannot  give  him 
any  proofs  concerning  Germany's  intention;  no 
man  on  earth  can ;  because  no  man  can  say  what  a 
nation  of  sixty-five  or  forty-five  milHon  people 
will  do  five,  ten,  or  fifteen  years  hence.  You  can- 
not tell  what  your  own  country  will  be  doing  five 
years  hence  in  so  relatively  simple  a  matter  as 
Woman's  Suffrage  or  the  Irish  question,  whether 
indeed,  the  British  Government  will  be  Liberal  or 
Conservative,  or  Socialist  or  Siiffragist.  How  is  it 
possible  to  give  any  assurance  therefore  concern- 
ing the  action  of  a  whole  people  five  or  ten  years 
hence  in  the  complex  field  of  foreign  politics? 

"Well,"  will  conclude  your  British  questioner, 
"as  it  is  impossible  to  say  what  the  future  may 
bring  forth,  the  safest  course  is  to  provide  for  the 
worst,  and,  in  so  vital  a  matter  as  naval  security, 
do  so  by  maintaining  unquestioned  superiority." 

And,  of  course,  the  Germans  are  perfectly 
entitled  to  reason  in  a  similar  way  and  to  adopt  an 
analogous  policy,  and  that  lands  us  straight  into  a 
period  of  armament  competition,  with  all  the  cost, 
ill-feeling,  misunderstanding,  and  danger  that  it 
involves. 

So  much  for  the  first  point.  As  to  the  second, 
when  the  Pacifist  attempts  to  show  that  we  are 
sufficiently  protected,  he  is  on  still  more  slippery 
ground.  There  is  no  such  thing  as  adequate 
protection  by  armaments — a  dictum  that  would 


2i6  Arms  and  Industry 

strike  us  immediately  as  obvious  if  we  were  accus- 
tomed to  think  of  war,  necessarily  a  problem  of  two 
parties,  in  terms  of  two  parties,  instead  of  in  terms 
of  one.     I  will  show  you  what  I  mean. 

Mr.  Churchill  lays  it  down  as  an  axiom  that  the 
way  to  be  sure  of  peace  is  to  be  so  much  stronger 
than  your  enemy  that  he  dare  not  attack  you.  One 
wonders  if  the  Germans  will  take  his  advice.  It 
amounts  to  this :  Here  are  two  men  likely  to  quarrel ; 
how  shall  they  keep  the  peace?  Let  each  be 
stronger  than  the  other,  and  all  will  be  well.  This 
"axiom"  is,  of  course,  a  physical  absurdity.  On 
this  basis  there  is  no  such  thing  as  adequate  de- 
fence for  either.  If  one  party  to  the  dispute  is 
safe,  the  other  is  not,  and  is  entitled  to  try  and 
make  itself  so. 

So  you  see  the  line  taken,  simply  of  denying  that 
Germany  has  this  intention  of  aggression,  is  in- 
efficient; you  cannot  give  any  data,  while  your 
opponent  gives  a  good  deal  of  data — of  sorts. 

Those  who,  with  Lord  Roberts,  urge  the  likeli- 
hood of  aggressive  action  on  the  part  of  Germany, 
point  to  Germany's  expanding  population,  her 
need  for  colonies,  for  sources  of  raw  material,  her 
desire  to  extend  the  German  heritage  of  speech  and 
tradition,  and  so  on ;  they  contend  that,  having  the 
power,  she  could  starve  us  into  submission  as  a 
means  to  those  ends;  and  that  consequently  we 
have  to  provide  against  these  terrible  contingencies. 

Just  before  sitting  down  to  write  these  lines,  I 
opened  by  accident  the  current  National  Review 


The  International  Polity  Movement    217 

and  in  an  article  on  "  Welt  Politik  "  occur  these 
lines: 

"Germany  must  expand.  Every  year  an  extra 
million  babies  are  crying  out  for  more  room,  and  as  the 
expansion  of  Germany  by  peaceful  means  seems  im- 
possible, Germany  can  only  provide  for  those  babies 
at  the  cost  of  potential  foes,  and  France  is  one  of  them. 

"A  vanquished  France  might  give  Germany  all  she 
wants.  The  immense  colonial  possessions  of  France 
present  a  tantalizing  and  provoking  temptation  to 
German  cupidity,  which,  it  cannot  be  too  often  re- 
peated, is  not  mere  envious  greed  but  stern  necessity. 
The  same  struggle  for  life  and  space  which  more  than 
a  thousand  years  ago  drove  one  Teutonic  wave  after 
another  across  the  Rhine  and  the  Alps  is  now  once 
more  a  great  compelling  force.  Colonies  fit  to  receive 
the  German  surplus  population  are  the  greatest  need 
of  Germany.  This  aspect  of  the  case  may  be  all  very 
sad  and  very  wicked,  but  it  is  true.  .  .  .  Herein  lies 
the  temptation  and  the  danger.  Herein,  too,  lies 
the  ceaseless  and  ruinous  struggle  of  armaments,  and 
herein  for  France  lies  the  dire  necessity  of  linking 
her  foreign  policy  with  that  of  powerful  allies." 

Now,  if  the  underlying  assumption  of  the  rela- 
tion of  military  power  to  expansion  is  correct — if 
it  is  for  Germany  a  choice  between  hardship  for  her 
children,  permanent  exclusion  from  the  good  things 
of  the  world,  and  military  expansion — then  the 
National  Reviewer,  and  Lord  Roberts  and  Mr. 
Churchill  and  Mr.  Borden  and  Mr.  Blatchford  and 
Mr.  Frederic  Harrison  are  absolutely  right.    There 


2i8  Arms  and  Industry 

is  a  real  conflict  of  interest  between  these  two 
groups,  and  force  alone  can  settle  it;  and  on  the 
side  of  the  war  party  will  be  invoked  not  merely- 
base  and  sordid  motives,  but  some  of  the  noblest 
as  well  as  the  most  elemental  that  guide  men's 
conduct — the  determination  that  their  children 
shall  not  starve,  that  they  will  discharge  their 
obligations  to  those  dependent  uponithem,  and  the 
feeling  that  those  who  at  present  possess  the  great 
spaces  of  the  earth,  have,  since  they  took  them  by 
force  in  the  past,  no  exclusive  right  to  them,  and 
that  others  are  entitled  to  assert  their  right  by 
force  if  they  can. 

Pacifists  who  resist  these  arguments  base  their 
case  mainly  on  the  fact  that  a  coimtry  like  Ger- 
many is  too  civilized  to  advance  by  those  means,  or 
that  she  would  be  too  cautious ;  that  she  would  not 
take  the  risks  involved  in  such  a  method  of  expan- 
sion ;  that  it  would  be  too  expensive,  would  disturb 
too  much  her  credit  and  trade ;  that  she  cannot  find 
the  money — a  view  for  which,  as  I  have  admitted, 
there  is  an  immense  deal  to  be  urged,  just  as  the 
friends  of  Thomas  found  a  great  deal  to  say  on  the 
groimds  of  morality  and  interest  in  trying  to  per- 
suade him  not  to  slay  Jones.  But  such  arguments 
cannot  be  conclusive.  Given  great  need,  all  cost  is 
relative. 

Each  fears  the  other  may  be  impelled  by  need 
to  commit  an  aggression,  or  to  use  force  to  the 
disadvantage  of  the  weaker  Power.  Each  believes 
the  other  would  have  an  interest  in  so  doing. 


The  International  Polity  Movement    219 

Such  assumption  is  quite  clearly  indicated  in  the 
current  discussions  of  the  subject.  On  the  Brit- 
ish side  we  have  quite  recently  had  several  nota- 
ble expressions  of  opinion  which  indicate  very 
clearly  what  I  am  trying  to  enforce.  Mr.  Winston 
Churchill,  the  First  Lord  of  the  Admiralty,  in  his 
justification  of  preponderant  naval  power,  declared 
that  "the  whole  fortune  of  our  race,  treasure 
accumulated  during  so  many  centuries,  would  be 
swept  utterly  away  if  our  naval  supremacy  were 
impaired";  Mr.  Borden,  the  Canadian  Prime 
Minister,  has  declared  that,  "even  without  war, 
the  mere  possession  of  stronger  power  by  a  rival 
nation  would  take  from  us  the  sole  guarantee  of 
the  nation's  continued  existence,  and  that  the  loss 
of  a  single  battle  would  practically  destroy  the 
United  Kingdom  and  shatter  the  British  Empire. " 

Mr.  Frederic  Harrison  wrote  the  other  day  that 
a  naval  defeat  would  mean  for  England  bankruptcy, 
starvation,  chaos. 

But  if  foreign  nations  want  to  bring  about  these 
things,  it  is  surely  because  they  hope  to  seciire 
advantage  by  so  doing.  If  "the  destruction  of  the 
British  Empire,"  whatever  that  may  mean,  is  go- 
ing to  do  harm  to  our  rival,  he  will  not  try  to 
bring  it  about ;  and  Lord  Roberts  hints  more  clearly 
at  the  thought  that  is  in  the  mind  of  all  these 
statesmen  when  he  says,  as  he  did  at  Manchester 
the  other  day,  that  Great  Britain  would  carry 
on  her  trade  on  the  mere  sufferance  of  any  foreign 
nation  that  had  greater  naval  power.     What  he 


220  Arms  and  Industry 

evidently  had  in  his  mind  was  that  a  stronger 
power  could  transfer  our  trade  to  itself.  If  there 
is  a  danger  of  foreign  nations  attempting  to  break 
up  our  Empire  and  trade  as  the  British  Statesmen 
suggest,  it  is  because  they  assume  that  the  Empire 
stands  in  the  way  of  their  expansion  and  trade. 

Now  the  whole  point  of  my  indictment  of  most 
Pacifist  propaganda  is  this:  that  it  has  not  in 
the  past  clearly  and  simply  challenged  these  funda- 
mental assumptions ;  nor  does  it  do  so  to-day.  It 
does  not  consistently  urge  and  make  plain  to  the 
common  mind  that  the  whole  dispute  about  military 
power  and  conquest  is  irrelevant  to  these  needs  of 
the  German  people;  that  if  the  matter  is  in  reality, 
as  alleged,  a  "  struggle  for  bread,"  if  Germany  needs 
the  wheat  of  Canada  wherewith  to  feed  her  people, 
she  can  have  it  now  by  paying  for  it,  and  would 
still  have  to  pay  for  it  if  she  "  conquered  "  Canada ; 
that  military  force  has  nothing  to  do  with  the 
problem  on  the  one  side  or  the  other ;  that  military 
conquest  could  not  secure  food  for  Germany's 
expanding  population,  could  not  help  her  expan- 
sion, nor  even  extend  the  area  of  her  speech  and 
social  institutions;  that  if,  for  instance,  "the 
Prussian  ideal"  is  to  be  imposed  on  Europe,  the 
greatest  problem  of  its  advocates  is  to  overcome  its 
enemies  in  Germany,  and  not  abroad;  that  con- 
versely— to  meet  the  case  of  Lord  Roberts,  Mr* 
Churchill,  and  Mr.  Frederic  Harrison — if  ever 
England  is  to  see  her  trade  or  colonies  transferred 
to  other  hands  it  will  not  be  as  the  result  of  naval 


The  International  Polity  Movement     221 

disasters ;  that  if  ever  her  population  are  faced  with 
starvation  or  emigration — which  in  some  circum- 
stances is  an  arguable  proposition — it  will  not  be 
because  trade  routes  are  blockaded  by  hostile 
cruisers;  that  the  loss  of  trade  and  the  possibility 
of  starvation  do  represent  dangers,  but  that  they 
could  be  fought  by  the  provision  of  battleships  as 
little  as  you  could  destroy  the  bacilli  of  typhoid 
fever  with  twelve-inch  guns ;  that  in  other  words, 
military  force  has  become  irrelevant  to  the 
struggles,  whether  material  or  moral,  of  civilized 
nations ;  and  that  the  effective  forces  for  the  accom- 
plishment of  the  aims  which  men  desire — whether 
well-being  or  the  achievement  of  some  moral  idea — 
have  shifted  from  the  plane  of  military  force  to 
another. 

You  may  ask  why  I  am  so  dogmatic  in  asserting 
that  these  more  fundamental  considerations  have 
not  been  urged.  You  probably  have  the  impres- 
sion that  public  discussion  rages  a  good  deal  round 
these  points. 

Well,  you  can  get  quite  exact  data.  This  period 
of  strain  between  England  and  Germany  has  been 
marked  by  several  very  much  discussed  declara- 
tions on  the  part  of  great  public  men.  I  have  taken 
four  as  a  type :  Lord  Roberts,  Mr.  Churchill,  Mr. 
Borden  (the  Canadian  Prime  Minister),  and  Mr. 
Frederic  Harrison — I  exclude  the  Maxses  and  the 
Garvins  and  the  Blatchfords,  although  as  a  matter 
of  fact  they  are  the  most  important  of  all.  But 
take  Mr.  Churchill's: 


222  Arms  and  Industry 

"The  whole  fortune  of  our  race  and  Empire,  the 
whole  treasure  accumulated  during  so  many  centuries 
of  sacrifice  and  achievement  would  perish  and  be 
swept  utterly  away  if  our  naval  supremacy  were  to  be 
impaired." 

Now  Mr.  Churchill  is  a  Cabinet  Minister,  mak- 
ing a  declaration  of  policy  of  the  greatest  possible 
moment.  Here,  if  ever,  was  an  occasion  for  those 
of  us  who  believe  that  the  fundamental  concep- 
tion is  false  to  make  our  voices  heard.  Well,  you 
may  search  all  the  principal  newspapers  of  Great 
Britain,  lay  and  pacifist,  and  you  will  not  find  one 
that  even  raises  the  point  to  which  I  am  calling 
attention.  If  you  follow  the  discussion,  you  will 
find  it  ignores  the  fundamental  question  of  whether 
complete  victory  by  Germany  will  achieve  this 
end,  and  rages  instead  roiind  such  questions  as 
whether  a  foreign  army  could  be  landed,  whether 
it  could  operate  when  once  landed  with  its  com- 
munications cut,  and  the  possibility  of  starvation 
for  this  country  is  discussed  in  terms  of  battle- 
ships and  the  protection  of  trade-routes. 

Concerning  Lord  Roberts's  declaration,  there  was 
one  reference  to  this  in  the  shape  of  a  letter  to  the 
Manchester  Guardian  written  by  my  friend  Mr. 
Haycock,  and  in  it  he  says: 

"If  you  will  examine  systematically,  as  I  have  done, 
the  comments  which  have  appeared  in  the  Liberal 
Press,  either  in  the  form  of  leading  articles,  or  in 
letters  from  readers,  concerning  Lord  Roberts's  speech, 


The  International  Polity  Movement    223 

you  will  find  that  though  it  is  variously  described  as 
"diabolical,"  "pernicious,"  "wicked,"  "inflamma- 
tory,"  and  "criminal,"  the  real  fundamental  assump- 
tions on  which  the  whole  speech  is  based,  and  which,  if 
correct,  justify  it,  are  by  implication  admitted;  at  any 
rate,  in  not  one  single  case  that  I  can  discover  are  they 
seriously  challenged. 

"Now,  when  you  consider  this,  it  is  the  most  serious 
fact  of  the  whole  incident — far  more  disquieting  in 
reality  than  the  facts  of  the  speech  itself,  especially 
when  we  remember  that  Lord  Roberts  did  but  adopt 
and  adapt  the  arguments  already  used  with  more 
sensationalism  and  less  courtesy  by  Mr.  Winston 
Churchill  himself. 

.  .  .  "  During  the  last  eighteen  months  I  have  ad- 
dressed not  scores  but  many  hundreds  of  meetings 
on  the  subject  of  the  very  proposition  on  which  Lord 
Roberts's  speech  is  based  and  which  I  have  indicated 
at  the  beginning  of  this  letter;  I  have  answered  not 
hundreds  but  thousands  of  questions  arising  out  of  it. 
And  I  think  that  gives  me  a  somewhat  special  under- 
standing of  the  mind  of  the  man  in  the  street.  The 
reason  he  is  subject  to  panic,  and  "sees  red, "  and  will 
often  accept  blindly  counsels  like  those  of  Lord  Roberts, 
is  that  he  holds  as  axioms  these  primary  assumptions 
to  which  I  have  referred — namely,  that  he  carries  on  his 
daily  life  by  virtue  of  military  force,  and  that  the 
means  of  carrying  it  on  will  be  taken  from  him  by  the 
first  stronger  Power  that  rises  in  the  world,  and  that 
that  Power  will  be  pushed  to  do  it  by  the  advantage 
of  such  seizure.  And  these  axioms  he  never  finds 
challenged  even  by  his  Liberal  guides. 

The  issue  for  those  who  really  desire  a  better  condi- 
tion is  clear.     So  long  as  by  their  silence,  or  by  their 


224  Arms  and  Industry 

indifference  to  the  discussion  of  the  fundamental  facts 
of  this  problem,  they  create  the  impression  that  Mr. 
Churchill's  axioms  are  unchallengeable,  the  panic- 
mongers  will  have  it  all  their  own  way,  and  our  action 
will  be  a  stimulus  to  similar  action  in  Germany,  and 
that  action  will  again  re-act  on  ours,  and  so  on  ad 
infinitum. 

"Why  is  not  some  concerted  effort  made  to  create  in 
both  countries  the  necessary  public  opinion,  by  en- 
couraging the  study  and  discussion  of  the  elements  of 
the  case?" 

So  far  as  I  could  find  out,  there  was  in  the  dis- 
cussion which  marked  these  pronouncements  of 
Mr.  Churchill,  Lord  Roberts,  and  the  rest,  no  one 
single  pacifist  protest  against  the  premises  on  which 
they  are  based.  One  can  only  assume  that  Paci- 
fists accept  them.  I  do  not  imply  that  either 
individuals  or  organizations  have  ignored  the 
speeches  and  statements;  there  have  been  formal 
and  lengthy  protests  in  great  number.  All  that 
I  urge  is  that  the  one  consideration  which  is  most 
relevant  to  the  whole  problem  has  been  ignored. 

Well,  that  is  why  the  Carton  Foundation  has 
been  established:  to  direct  attention  to  the  most 
relevant  point.  And  I  want  to  say  parenthetically 
but  with  all  the  emphasis  of  which  I  am  capable, 
that  agreement  upon  the  desirability  of  doing  that 
does  not  and  need  not  imply  agreement  as  to  the 
best  course  with  reference  to  the  present  armament 
problem.  I  come  back  to  my  illustration"  of 
Thomas  and  Jones.     So  long  as  Thomas  thinks 


The  International  Polity  Movement     225 

that  Jones  is  the  Jones  the  latter  is  in  danger  quite 
as  much  as  though  he  really  had  committed  the 
crime.  His  policy  is  evident:  to  do  his  best  to 
make  it  plain  to  Thomas  that  there  is  a  case  of 
mistaken  identity,  and  to  protect  himself  mean- 
while. Opinions  as  to  the  best  means  of  doing 
that  may  vary  in  infinite  degree.  Some  may 
think  it  best  for  Jones  to  try  and  frighten  Thomas 
— to  shake  his  fist  in  his  face.  Others  may  think, 
given  Thomas's  character,  that  this  is  quite  wrong 
and  that  he  is  never  likely  to  be  frightened.  But, 
however  we  may  differ  as  to  the  best  defensive 
means,  we  can  all,  if  we  admit  that  there  is  a  mis- 
take of  identity,  agree  that  it  is  desirable  to  con- 
vince Thomas  of  that  fact. 

I  want  particularly  to  emphasise  this  point  in 
order  to  show  that  the  educative  policy  of  the 
Garton  Foundation  is  one  which  can  equally  be 
supported  and  approved  by  the  soldier,  the  Navy 
League  man,  the  Universal  Military  Service  man, 
or  the  naval  economist  and  the  Quaker. 

There  are  one  or  two  points  that  I  would  like  to 
deal  with. 

You  may  say  first  that  this  irrelevance  of  po- 
litical dominion  and  conquest  to  industrial  and 
commercial  ends  of  which  I  have  spoken  has  for 
years  found  at  least  tentative  expression  by  the 
Manchester  School  and  by  Continental  economists 
and  Pacifists — Passy,  Ives  Guyot,  de  Molinari, 
d'Estoumelles  de  Constant,  Novikow;  secondly, 
that  to  imply  that  political  power  has  no  bearing 


226  Arms  and  Industry 

on  these  ends,  to  challenge  absolutely  the  whole 
premises,  is  to  enunciate  a  proposition  that  is 
untenable;  that  it  is  too  sweeping;  that  its  data 
is  too  complex  for  popular  treatment,  and  that  to 
crystallize  it  in  the  way  I  have  hinted  would  be  to 
tie  the  opposition  to  war  to  a  thesis  which  criti- 
cism might  prove  to  be  in  its  complete  form  un- 
sound.    I  want  to  answer  these  two  objections. 

It  is  quite  true  that  the  ideas  we  are  discussing 
were  outlined  and  forecast  by  the  men  whose 
names  I  have  mentioned,  and  I  wish  I  could 
find  fit  expression  to  emphasize  our  sense  of  debt 
to  them.  There  is  not,  and  never  has  been,  on  the 
part  of  those  of  us  whose  efforts  centre  round  the 
Garton  Foundation,  any  intention  or  desire  to 
belittle  the  value  of  their  work.  But  we  recognize 
this :  that  the  history  of  all  ideas  destined  to  affect 
human  conduct  is  marked  by  two  fairly  well- 
defined  stages — the  first  in  which  the  ideas  are 
nursed  by  a  somewhat  limited  academic  discussion, 
and  the  second  when  they  begin  to  receive  ap- 
plication to  policy.  The  ideas  associated  with 
Cobden's  name  were  a  commonplace  of  academic 
discussion  seventy  years  before  he  began  to  apply 
them  to  actual  policy.  Montaigne  was  laughing 
at  witchcraft  two  himdred  years,  and  most  edu- 
cated men  agreed  with  him  a  hundred  years  before 
the  last  execution  for  witchcraft.  Hero  of  Alex- 
andria, two  centuries  before  Christ,  describes 
several  methods  of  applying  steam  to  power;  the 
Marquis  of  Worcester  possessed  a  working  steam- 


The  International  Polity  Movement     22^ 

engine  a  hundred  years  before  Watt  patented  his; 
Newcomen's  engine  pumped  water  and  worked  for 
nearly  a  century  before  the  principle  which  was 
thus  being  used  had  seriously  affected  English 
industry.  The  phenomenon  could  be  illustrated 
to  infinity.  Certain  collateral  conditions  are 
needed  before  any  idea  is  capable  of  practical 
application. 

However  long  these  ideas  of  ours  may  have  been 
a  commonplace  of  the  academic  discussion  of 
Pacifism  and  abstract  economics,  there  have,  until 
our  time,  been  wanting  certain  simple  mechanical 
facts  likely  to  bring  home  the  truth  to  the  million 
(which  alone  can  make  them  part  of  practical 
politics) — such  facts  as  the  elaboration  and  exten- 
sion of  a  world-wide  credit  system,  which  has 
created  a  condition  of  interdependence  between 
the  nations  never  before  known.  This  doctrine 
could  not,  originally,  affect  policy,  because  its 
truth  could  not  be  made  visible. 

We  are  now  in  possession  of  facts  which  do  en- 
able us  to  crystallize  into  a  definite  and  comprehen- 
sive social  and  political  doctrine,  of  a  quite  simple 
nature,  likely  to  affect  public  opinion,  the  principle 
of  the  futility  of  military  force  as  applied  to  the 
things  for  which  the  world  is  striving.  We  are 
able  to  show  how  and  why  the  transfer  of  wealth 
or  trade  or  moral  possessions  or  ideals  (for  the 
same  process  which  makes  the  material  object 
impossible  also  makes  the  moral)  cannot  be 
achieved  by  military  force.     We  can  demonstrate 


228  Arms  and  Industry 

by  fact  that  the  mechanism  of  trade,  the  processes 
of  wealth-making,  do  not  permit  of  transference 
in  this  way;  and  that  this  is  the  result,  not  of 
any  mere  accident — just  because  it  happens — but 
because  human  society  is  so  shaping  itself,  and 
necessarily  so  shaping  itself,  as  enormously  to 
increase  the  element  of  mutual  dependence  the 
one  upon  the  other.  That  element  has  increased 
not  merely  in  degree,  but  in  extent  and  area;  it  is 
not  simply  that,  if  the  mythical  German  invader 
were  to  sack  the  Bank  of  England,  the  German 
merchant  would  pay  the  piper  perhaps  equally 
with  ourselves,  but  that  other  merchants — French, 
American,  Italian — would  in  some  degree  suffer 
also.  It  is  not  merely  that  the  prospective  rivals 
are  dependent  the  one  upon  the  other,  but  that 
third,  fourth,  fifth,  and  sixth  parties  are  equally 
dependent  upon  the  interdependent  situation  of 
the  first  two. 

Thoroughly  to  appreciate  the  meaning  of  this 
situation  is  to  recast  our  conceptions  not  merely  of 
the  morality  or  otherwise  of  warfare,  but  of  the 
mechanism  of  human  society,  and  to  recast  mainly 
one  fundamental  conception,  that  of  the  relation 
of  force  to  social  advantage. 

It  is  possible  to  reduce  the  thing  to  a  system 
easily  understandable;  to  furnish  a  simple  social 
and  economic  philosophy  of  trade  and  the  ordinary 
activities  of  life ;  to  give  the  common  man  a  pretty 
clear  and  well-defined  working  hypothesis  of  a 
warless  civilization.     For  this  is  certain :  merely  to 


The  International  Polity  Movement     229 

disentangle  detached  facts,  merely  to  express  a 
general  aspiration  towards  better  things,  is  no 
good  when  we  are  opposed  by  a  system  as  well- 
defined  and  understandable  in  its  motives  and 
methods  as  is  the  war  system  of  Europe.  To  a 
system  like  that,  reposing  upon  a  quite  definite 
philosophy,  upon  a  process  which  is  intelligible  to 
the  ordinary  man,  you  must  oppose,  if  you  hope 
to  replace  it,  another  system,  another  working 
hypothesis  which  you  must  demonstrate  to  be 
more  in  accordance  with  facts. 

I  think  you  will  agree  that  I  do  the  Peace 
Societies  no  injustice,  that  I  do  even  the  economic 
Pacifists  no  injustice,  as  it  certainly  is  no  reflection 
upon  them  in  any  way,  if  I  say  that  their  efforts 
at  education  and  propaganda  did  not  take  the 
form  of  showing  clearly  this  change  in  the  structure 
of  human  society,  of  revealing  the  process,  of 
showing  the  how  and  why  of  the  futility  of  mili- 
tary force.  There  are  ample  reasons  perhaps, 
why  the  efforts  of  Peace  Societies  went  for  the 
most  part  into  other  directions. 

Now  as  to  the  other  objection  I  have  indicated — 
that  this  hypothesis  is  too  sweeping,  that  it  ties 
Pacifists  to  a  principle  liable  to  many  objections. 

In  this  connection  I  want  to  draw  a  parallel. 
How  has  war  disappeared  in  the  past?  How  did 
religious  warfare — at  times  the  bloodiest,  most 
hateful,  most  passionate,  most  persistent  warfare 
that  ever  devastated  Europe — come  to  an  end? 
Obviously  it  has  not  been  the  work  of  Conventions 


230  Arms  and  Industry 

and  Treaties  between  the  religious  groups — though 
that  plan  was  for  the  best  part  of  a  century  tried 
by  the  statesmen  of  Europe  without  success.  Nor 
has  it  been  the  result  of  government  "imposing" 
peace — indeed,  the  wars  largely  arose  from  an 
attempt  to  do  that.*  Obviously  it  was  a  matter  of 
advancing  opinion,  a  change  of  ideas  and  intellec- 
tual conceptions  in  Europe.  The  cessation  of 
religious  war  indicates  the  greatest  outstanding 
fact  in  the  history  of  civilized  mankind  during  the 
last  one  thousand  years,  which  is  this:  that  all 
civilized  governments  have  abandoned  their  claim 
to  dictate  the  belief  of  their  subjects.  For  very 
long  that  was  a  right  tenaciously  held,  and  it  was 
held  on  grounds  for  which  there  is  an  immense 
deal  to  be  said.  It  was  held  that,  as  belief  is  an 
integral  part  of  conduct,  that  as  conduct  springs 
from  belief,  and  the  purpose  of  the  State  is  to 
ensure  such  conduct  as  will  enable  us  to  go  about 
our  business  in  safety,  it  was  obviously  the  duty 
of  the  State  to  protect  those  beliefs,  the  abandon- 
ment of  which  seemed  to  undermine  the  founda- 
tions of  conduct.  I  do  not  believe  that  this  case 
has   ever   been    completely   answered.     A   great 

*  "On  April  19,  1 561,  was  drafted  a  pacification  edict  by  which 
the  members  of  the  two  factions  (Huguenot  and  CathoHc)  were 
prohibited  from  abusing  each  other.  .  .  .  The  Huguenots  were 
permitted  to  exercise  their  religion  and  granted  the  power  to  hold 
synods  with  the  authorization  of  the  Sovereign.  Contrary  to  all 
the  hopes  of  the  Chancellor,  the  Edict  of  Toleration  was  notf 
however,  the  first  step  towards  pacification,  but  towards  the  wars 
of  religion." — Ruffini,  "Religious  Liberty." 

15 


The  International  Polity  Movement    231 

many  believe  it  to-day,  and  there  are  great  sections 
of  the  European  popiilations  and  immensely 
powerful  bodies  that  would  reassert  it  if  only  they 
had  the  opportunity.  Men  of  profound  thought 
and  profound  learning  to-day  defend  it;  and  per- 
sonally I  have  found  it  very  difficult  to  make  a 
clear  and  simple  case  for  the  defence  of  the  principle 
on  which  every  civilized  government  in  the  world  is 
to-day  founded.  How  do  you  account  for  this — 
that  a  principle  which  I  do  not  believe  one  man  in 
a  million  could  defend  from  all  objections — has 
become  the  dominating  rule  of  civilized  government 
throughout  the  world.'* 

Well,  that  once  universal  policy  has  been  aban- 
doned, not  because  every  argument,  or  even 
perhaps  most  of  the  arguments,  which  led  to  it 
have  been  answered,  but  because  the  fundamental 
one  has.  The  conception  on  which  it  rested  has 
been  shown  to  be,  not  in  every  detail,  but  in  the 
essential  at  least,  an  illusion,  a  mwconception. 

The  world  of  religious  wars  and  of  the  Inquisition 
was  a  world  which  had  a  quite  definite  conception 
of  the  relation  of  authority  to  religious  belief  and 
to  truth — as  that  authority  was  the  source  of 
truth;  that  truth  could  be,  and  should  be,  pro- 
tected by  force ;  that  CathoHcs  who  did  not  resent 
an  insult  offered  to  their  faith  (like  the  failure  of  a 
Huguenot  to  salute  a  passing  religious  procession) 
were  renegade. 

Now  what  broke  down  this  conception  was  a 
growing    realization    that    authority,    force,    was 


232  Arms  and  Industry 

irrelevant  to  the  issues  of  truth  (a  party  of  heretics 
triumphed  by  virtue  of  some  physical  accident,  as 
that  they  occupied  a  moimtain  region) ;  that  it  was 
ineffective,*  and  that  the  essence  of  truth  was 
something  outside  the  scope  of  physical  conflict. 
As  the  realization  of  this  grew,  the  conflicts 
declined. 

So  with  conflict  between  the  political  groups. 
They  arise  from  a  corresponding  conception  of  the 
relation  of  military  authority  to  political  ends — 
those  ends  for  which  governments  are  founded — 
the  protection  of  life  and  property,  the  promotion 
of  well-being.  When  it  is  mutually  realized  by 
the  parties  concerned  that  security  of  life  and 
property,  like  the  security  of  truth,  is  not  derived 
from  military  force;  that  military  force  is  as  in- 
effective, as  irrelevant,  to  the  end  of  promoting 
prosperity  as  of  promoting  truth,  then  political 
wars  will  cease,  as  religious  wars  have  ceased,  for 
the  same  reason  and  in  the  same  way. 

That  way  was  not  by  the  complete  destruction, 
in  the  mind  of  every  person  concerned,  or  even  in 
the  minds  of  the  majority,  of  the  misconception 
on  which  the  old  policy  was  based.  But  the 
essentials  were  subconsciously  sufficiently  in  the 
ascendant. 

I  want  to  illustrate  how  essential  truths  may 
emerge  almost  unconsciously. 

*In  the  preamble  to  the  Edict  of  Toleration  of  November  17, 
1787,  Louis  XVI  admits  the  futility  of  the  efforts  made  by  his 
predecessors  to  reduce  their  subjects  to  unity  of  faith. 


The  International  Polity  Movement    233 

Two  hundred  and  fifty  years  ago  an  educated 
man,  with  a  lawyer's  knowledge  of  the  rules  of 
evidence,  condemned  an  old  woman  to  death  for 
changing  herself  into  a  cow  or  a  goat.  Ask  a  ten- 
year-old  boy  of  our  time  whether  he  thinks  it 
likely  that  an  old  woman  would  or  could  change 
herself  into  a  cow  or  a  goat,  and  he  will  almost 
always  promptly  reply,  "  Certainly  not. "  (I  have 
put  this  many  times  to  the  test  of  experiment.) 
What  enables  the  imleamed  boy  to  decide  right 
where  the  learned  judge  decided  wrong?  You 
say  it  is  the  "instinct"  of  the  boy.  But  the  in- 
stinct of  the  seventeenth-century  boy  (like  the 
learning  of  the  seventeenth-century  judge)  taught 
him  the  exact  reverse.  Something  has  happened. 
What  is  it? 

We  know,  of  course,  that  it  is  the  unconscious 
appUcation  on  the  part  of  the  boy  of  the  inductive 
method  of  reasoning  (of  which  he  has  never  heard 
and  could  not  define),  and  the  general  attitude  of 
mind  towards  phenomena  which  comes  of  that 
habit.  He  forms  by  reasoning  correctly  (on  the 
prompting  of  parents,  nurses,  and  teachers)  about 
a  few  simple  facts — which  impress  him  by  their 
visibiHty  and  tangibility — a  working  hypothesis  of 
how  things  happen  in  the  world,  which,  while  not 
infallibly  apphed — while,  indeed,  often  landing 
the  boy  into  mistakes — is  far  more  trustworthy  as 
a  rule  than  that  formed  by  the  learned  judge 
reasoning  incorrectly  from  an  immense  number  of 
facts. 


234  Arms  and  Industry 

Such  is  the  simple  basis  of  this  very  amazing 
miracle — the  great  fact  which  is  at  the  bottom  of 
the  whole  difference  between  the  modem  and 
mediaeval  world,  between  the  Western  and  the 
Eastern.  And  it  is  in  some  such  way  that  we  can 
bring  before  the  mind  of  the  European  public  the 
significance  of  a  few  simple,  ascertainable,  tangible 
facts  in  such  fashion,  that  they  will  frame  un- 
consciously a  working  hypothesis  of  international 
society,  which  will  lead  to  deductions  sufficiently 
correct  and  sufficiently  widespread  to  do  for  the 
political  groups  what  has  already  been  done  for 
the  religious  groups. 

To  impress  the  significance  of  just  those  facts 
which  are  the  most  relevant  and  essential  in  this 
problem,  to  do  what  we  can  to  keep  them  before 
public  attention  and  to  encourage  their  discussion, 
is  the  work  of  our  movement;  to  discern  the  best 
method  and  to  find  the  means  of  doing  that  is  the 
work  of  this  Conference. 


INDEX 


Acceleration,  social  law  of, 

124 
Aggression : 

motives  for,  1 1 

always  "other  nations  who 

contemplate, "  30 
implied   by   need   for  de- 
fence, 77,  95 
"proofs"    of   German   in- 
tentions, 215 
See     Conquest,    Defence, 
War 
Alabama  claims,  195 
Alsace-Lorraine : 

grant  of  constitution,  29 
Alsatian  nationality,  78 
failure  of  attempt  to  Ger- 
manize, 80 
Altruism,  if  universal,  is  self- 
stultifying,  52 
America.     See  United  States 
America,  South: 

military  States,  xxvii 
Venezuela,  xxvii,  70,  74 
Nicaragua,  71 
German  trade  in,  159 
Ancellon  on  Diplomacy,  39 
Annexation  "illusion,"  63,  64 
Armaments: 

wastefulness    of    competi- 
tion in,  15 
British-German  rivalry  in, 

large,  demanded  in  cause 
of  peace,  62 

cost  to  Britain  and  Europe, 
98,  190 

European  armament  pro- 
blem, 188 

British  and  German  Navy 
Leagues,  192 


none  on  Canadian-Ameri- 
can frontier,  195 
See  Navy,  Force 
Army,  controlling  or  controlled 
by  voter,  70 
See  Military,  Force 
Astigmatism,  political,  199 
Astronomical    research,    inter- 
national influence  of,  33 
Attack.     See   Aggression,   De- 
fence 
Attila,  changed  conditions 

since,  124, 
Australia: 

Germanization  impossible, 
81 
Axioms  of  Statecraft: 

formulated  at  length,  21- 

30 
orthodox  views,  22, 62,  63, 

imply  that  conflict  is  in- 
evitable, 25 

Comte  de  Garden,  38,  39 

Mr.  Churchill  on  how  to 
secure  peace,  xl,  62, 
177-8,  216 

Lord  Roberts  on  naval 
power  and  commerce,  62 

"War  is  a  part  of  policy, " 
96 

rendered  obsolete  by  bank- 
ing, 99 

Dr.DavidJayneHillon,i4i 

cannibalistic,  152 

Mahan  and  Von  Stengel, 
152 

National  Review,  154,  216 

Mr.  Churchill  on  Naval 
Supremacy,  219 

See  Ideas 


235 


236 


Index 


Balfour,  Mr.  Arthur,  208 
Bankers,  Institute  of,  lecture 

delivered  to,  86 
Banking.     See  Credit,  Finance 
Bar,  Prof.  Karl  von,  36 
Belgium : 

small  but  prosperous,  23 
Bergson,  Henri,  56 
Bernhardi,  General  von,  169 
Biological   impulse    to   use   of 

force,  xxxiii,  xxxvi 
Bismarck,  170 

and  German  banks,  91 
and  France  in  1870,  120 
"bleeding  France  white," 
124,  127 
Blatchford,  Mr.  Robert,  214 
Blucher,  loi,  103 
Boer  War,  198 
Bourses,  French  and  German 

in  1911,  122 
Brentano,  Prof.  Lujo,  36 
Britain: 

and    Indians    in     Natal, 

xxviii 
colonial     compared     with 

foreign  trade,  23,  159 
and  Germany,  rivalry,  25, 

79,  153.  213 
foreign  origin  of  elements 

of  greatness,  xxii,  33 
should  impart  her  avowed 

wisdom,  35 
army  acts  as  voter  directs, 

70 
why    government    cannot 
become  dictatorship,  71 
former  isolation,  105,  116 
the    first     nation    to    be 
vitally     dependent     on 
others,  117 
attitude  toward  American 

Civil  War,  119 
France  and  America  lately 

her  enemies,  126 
does  not  "own"  her  col- 
onies, 158 
and  German  trade,  164 
does  not  need  to  keep  order 
in  Germany,  169 


"navy     not     meant     for 

aggression,"  175 
British  and  German  points 

of  view,  179 
and  Germany,  the  longest 

purse,  186 
power    of    United    States 

against,  194 

British-German     question 

can     be     settled,     198. 

See  also   British    Empire, 

Colonies,  etc. 

British  Association,  paper  read 

at,  38 
British  Empire: 

force  eliminated   between 

parts,  xxviii 
safety  of,  debate  at  Cam- 
bridge, 173 
See  Canada,   Australia, 
New     Zealand,     South 
Africa,  India,  Egypt 
Butler,    Nicholas    Murray, 
xlix 

Cambridge  Union,  debate  at, 

173 
Canada,  195,  196 

are  we   "owners"  of,  62, 

64 
"giving  away,"  xxxii,  64 
could  not  be  Germanized, 

81,  162 
undefendedAmerican  fron- 
tier, 195,  196 
Cancellation     of     force.      See 

Force 
Cannibalism    gives    place    to 

slavery,  106 
Cannibalistic  maxims  of  state- 
craft, 152 
Churchill,  Mr.  Winston: 

how  to  preserve  peace,  xl, 

62,  177-8,  216 
on  naval  supremacy,  214, 
222 
Civilist    and    Militarist,    xxvi, 
xxxviii,  xlv,  69 
the  two  conceptions  form- 
ulated, xxxix 


Index 


237 


Civilization : 

its  frail  foundation,  xxxviii 
use   made   of   force   indi- 
cates grade  of,  74 
See  Society,  Force,  Labour, 
Co-operation 
Cobden,    Richard,    195,     209, 

226 
Coercion : 

interdependence     nullifies 

effectiveness  of,  xvii 
limitation  of,  xxv 
free  agreement  substituted 

for,  XXXV 
belief  in  value  of,  12 
a  waste  of  human  effort, 

13-16 
makes  reasoning  imperfect 

or  futile,  73 
See  also  Force 
•'Coffin  Trust,  The,"  144 
Colonies: 

proprietary  rights  in,  xxxii 
Spanish    colonial    system, 

III, 114 
monopolist    policy    futile, 

112 
Britain  changes  her  atti- 
tude towards,  118 
Germany's    real    colonies, 

160 
early  colonial  history,  161 
See  Markets 
Commerce: 

futility  of  force  for  pro- 
moting, 29 
French  money  assists  Ger- 
man, 128 
See  Trade 
Communication : 

improved  means  of,  20 
Competition  ("Rifleman"),  I53 
Conceptions  and  terminology, 

xxxii 
Conduct : 

is  man  master  of  his,  xlv 
"not  affected   by  logic," 

55 
determined  by  facts  only 
when  realized,  in 


Confiscation: 

impossibility  of,  102 
Conquest: 

does  not  enrich  a  nation, 

64 
trade    cannot    be    "cap- 
tured" by,  79 
has  failed  in  case  of  Alsace, 

80 
cannot  to-day  yield  plun- 
der, lOI 
leaves  two  courses  open, 

103 
Norman  type  of,  109 
Germany  and  Canada,  161 
See  Aggression,   Colonies, 
Territory,  War 
Conway  Memorial  Lecture,  38 
Conway,  Moncure,  on  attack 

and  defence,  66 
Co-operation : 

necessary  for  conquest  of 

nature,  xviii 
international,  essential,  xix 
intellectual,    across    fron- 
tiers, xxii 
born  of  failure  of  force, 

XXXV 

See  also  Civilization,  Di- 
vision of  Labour,  Inter- 
dependence 
Copernican  Controversy,  2 
Corn    Laws    "rained   away," 

117 
Courtois,  "History  of  Banking 

in  France,"  90 
Credit  and  Banking,  28,  86,  227 
influence   of,    on   interna- 
tional relations,  86 
social  and  economic  reac- 
tions of,  86 
bank  rate  and  market  rate, 

88 
German  credit  and  French 

money,  89 
governments   and    banks, 

90,  138 
the  sensory  nerves  of  the 
social  organism,  94,  122, 
134 


238 


Index 


Credit  and  Banking — Conl. 

renders  axioms  of  state- 
craft obsolete,  99 

results  of  looting  Bank  of 
England,  loi,  228 

calls  for  revised  political 
philosophy,  102 

has  changed  relations  of 
States,  102 

paper  tokens  are  not 
actual    wealth,    103 

gives  a  nation  organic  con- 
sciousness, no,  115 

in  historic  times,  in 

the  instantaneous  reac- 
tion, 115,  131 

Oppenheimer  on  German 
banks,  122 

in  the  Franco-German 
crisis,  1 19-128 

turns  French  capital  to 
German  use,  129 

has  frustrated  fanciful 
schemes    of    diplomats, 

134 
are    these    considerations 

"sordid"?  134 
must  be  allied  with  sound 

trading,  135 
"a  queue  of  people  and  a 

city  loan,"  135 
the    "psychological"    re- 
serve, 138 
compel  us  to  observe  our 

duty  to  posterity,  139 
bankers  not  "saviours  of, " 

but  essential  to,  society, 

140 
See  also  Finance 

Darby,   Dr.  Evans,  on  "The 
New  Pacifism,"  40,  43,  47 
Darwin  and  his  critics,  2 
Defence  and  Aggression: 
relation  of,  10,  30 
right  of  self-defence,  65 
Conway  and  Nevinson  on, 

65 
defence  is  the  negation  of 
war,  67 


why  the  law  permits  self- 
defence,  69 

self-defence  compels  settle- 
ment by  consent,  xxxvi, 
72 

defence  implies  aggression, 

77,  95 
believes   in   defence,    171, 

175 
defence  includes  two  par- 
ties, 177 
right  of  defence  denied  to 

Germans,  180 
how    panics   are    started, 

213 
See  also  Aggression 
Delbriick,      Professor,      Daily 

Mail  interview,  146 
Diplomacy: 

"classic,"  8,  141 
basic  assumptions  of,  38 
See  also  Statecraft,    Mili- 
tarism 
Discussion     rages     too     often 
round  immaterial  issues, 
224 
Division  of  Labour: 

renders  international  hos- 
tilities irrelevant,  xxi 
nullifies  efficacy   of   coer- 
cion, 13,  19,  29,  106 
is  the  embryo  of  society, 

15 

supplies  our  innumerable 
needs,  16 

the  case  of  two  villages,  19 

prevents  exaction  of  trib- 
ute, 22,  23 

between  Lancashire  and 
Louisiana,  82,  116,  118- 
9,  202 

has  made  organized  society 
possible,  105 

co-operation  replaces  co- 
ercion, 107 

between  France  and  Ger- 
many, 130 

See    Co-operation,    Civil- 
ization 
Doctrines,  disturbing  ancient,2 


Index 


239 


Economic  and  political  frontiers 
do  not  coincide,  xxi,  131,  165 

Economic  interest  defined,  41, 
42 

Edicts  of  Toleration,  230,  232 

Education  in  international 
polity  wanted,  83,  133,  190, 
199,  207 

Egypt,  Britain's  policing  work, 
170 

Emigration  from  Germany,  155 

Empire,  British.  See  British 
Empire 

England.    See  Britain 

Esher,  Viscount,  208 

Ethics.  See  Morality  and  Self- 
interest 

Exchange.  See  Division  of 
Labour 

Explosive  material  that  cannot 
go  off,  197 

Facts,  need  for  facing,  8 
Fallacies.     See  Ideas 
Fatalism  of  the  militarist,  xliv 
Feudal    community  was    self- 
supporting,  105 
Finance : 

investments   secure   with- 
out   armed    protection, 
xxviii 
financiers  and  internation- 
al politics,  87,  88,  89,  94 
financiers  in  Franco-Ger- 
man crisis,  88,  89 
governmental  interference, 

90,  91 
bound  up  with  entire  social 

life,  92 
development  of  sensibility, 

115,  123 
in    191 1     Franco-German 

crisis,  120 
financiers  and  war,   "The 

Coffin  Trust,"    144 
See  Credit 


Food: 


Britain  dependent  on  for- 
eign, 117 
early  struggles  for,  156 


Germany    and    Canadian 
wheat,  158 

See  Struggle  for  Bread 
Force: 

does    not    determine    ad- 
vantage, XV 

interdependence     nullifies 
effectiveness  of,  xvii 

basis  of  social  security  is 
cancellation  of,  xxiv 

government  must  only  use 
negatively,  xxv 

inoperative,  to    protect 
British  tourists,  xxviii 

armies  are  visible,  social 
forces,  xxxi 

co-operation  bom  of  fail- 
ure of,  xxxiii 

becomes    ineflfective 
through  resistance,  xxxiv 

biological  impulse   to  use 
of,  xxxvi 

law   of    cancellation,    14, 
161,  171,  172 

used  to    cancel    force    is 
justified,  67 

law  employs  force  to  can- 
cel force,  70 

elimination  of,  is   law  of 
progress,  72 

discontinued    only    when 
ineffective,  72 

often  futile  and  ineflfect- 
ive, 74 

ineffective  to-day  against 
moral  possessions,  77,  79 

rendered  futile  by  banking 
system,  99,  131 

obsolescent  through  divi- 
sion of  labour,  107 

historical    sketch    of    de- 
clining value  of,  106 

' '  Military,  Place  in  Modern 
Statecraft,"  149 

military  force  futile,  168, 
227 

one  military  force  nullifies 
another,  169 

cancellation   the  soldier's 
way,  171 


240 


Index 


Force — Continued 

the  pirate  crew,  206 
See  also  Coercion 
France: 

breakdown  of  colonial  sys- 
tem, 29 
German  crisis  of  191 1,  89, 

120 
"History  of  Banking  in," 

90 
government   control   over 

banks,  91 
attitude    to    Germany    in 

1870,  121 
but  lately  Britain's  enemy, 

126 
has    aided    Germany    by 

aiding  Russia,   128 
a  saving  nation,  129 
British  expeditionary  force , 

183 
Freewill  or  fatalism,  xliv 

See  also  Ideas 
French   Revolution,  effects  of, 
31 

Galileo  and  his  critics,  2,  5,  6 
Gartden,  Comte  de,  on  State- 
craft, 38 
Garton,  Sir  Richard,  208 
Garton  Foundation,  the,  208, 

224,  225 
Gazette,    Bourse,  comment  on 

crisis,  122 
Germany : 

Home  and  foreign  policy, 

xli 
Prussianism,  xliv 
address  to  University  stu- 
dents, I 
expansion   of  her  foreign 

trade,  23 
and    Britain,  rivalry,  24, 

79,  153.  213 

and  coming  political  re- 
formation, 36 

"must  fight  because  she  is 
hungry,"  62 

not  an  economic  unit,  64 

Poland  and  Alsatia,  78 


Chancellor  on  Zabern  af- 
fair, 81 

Canada  and  Australia, 
81 

Franco-German  crisis,  89, 
120-124 

governmental  pressure  on 
banks,  92 

could  German  "Vikings" 
plunder  Britain,   loi 

German  union  of  1870, 
attitude  of  France,  119 

French  aid  to  Russia 
benefits  her,  128 

Professor  Delbriick  on 
British    intentions,    146 

National  Review  on  Ger- 
man necessities,  154 

where  her  real  "colonies" 
are,  160 

could  Germany  "own" 
Canada,  161 

and  British  trade,  164 

does  not  need  to  keep 
order  in  Britain,  169 

Mr.  Robert  Yerburgh  on, 

German  and  British 
points  of  view,  179 

German  position  relative 
to  Britain,  179-184 

Hurd  on  German  naval 
policy,  186 

British-German  question 
can  be  settled,  198 

if  Germany  had  acted  like 
America,  200 

her  supposed  needs,  217 
Gibbon  on    barbarian   migra- 
tions, 155 
Giddings,  Professor,  72 
Government: 

must  use  force  only  to 
cancel  force,  xxi 

once  a  professional  in- 
terest, XXX 

moral  forces  giving  se- 
curity, xxix 

militarism  distorts  struc- 
ture of,  xlii 


Index 


241 


Government — Continued 

cannot    become    dictator- 
ship, 71 
and  banking,  91,  138 
German,  is  not  indepen- 
dent of  national  feeling, 
126 
misconception  of  real  func- 
tions, 162 
See  also  State,  Nation 
"Great  Illusion,"  the,  xl,  106, 

160 
Greece : 

Brigands  and  British  bat- 
tleships, xxix 

Harms,  Prof.  Bernard,  36 
Harrison,    Mr.    Frederic,   214, 

217,  219,  221 
Haycock,  Mr.  A.  W.,  222 
"Heretic,   odour  of  the,"  58, 

75 
Hero  of  Alexandria,  226 
Hill,  Dr.  David  Jayne: 

on  science  of    statecraft, 

8 
on   basic   assumptions   of 

classic  diplomacy,  38 
on    "World  Organization 
and  the  Modern  State, " 
141 
Hirst,  Mr.  F.  W.,  209 
Holland : 

small  but  prosperous,  23 
Human  Nature: 

the  power  of  choice,  xxxiii 
pre-social      elements     in, 

xxxvi 
"men  are   not  guided  by 

logic,"  xxxvii 
free  will  or  fatalism,  xlv 
and  the  State,  Dr.  Hill  on, 

8 
See  also  Conduct,  Moral- 
ity 
Hume  on   interdependence  of 

nations,  116 
Hurd,  Mr.  Archibald,  186 
Hypothesis  of  the  book,  is  it 
too  sweeping?  226,  229 


Ideals: 

real  sanction  is  well-being 
of  society,  49,  53 

analogy  between  religious 
and  political,  52,  53 

if  unreasoned,  make  re- 
stricted appeal,  55 

need  not  be  defended  unless 
attacked,  77 

force  useless  for  promoting 
ideals,  77 

See  also  Religious  Beliefs 
Ideas: 

character  of  civilization 
determined  by,  ix,  54,  73 

False  theories  distort  plain 
facts,  X 

upon  foreign  and  home 
affairs  related,  x 

do  our  own  need  no  exam- 
ination? xl,  35 

value  of  correcting  false, 

1,3,31 

practical  bearing  of  re- 
formed, 6 

need  for  new  tests  of,  8 

have  no  frontiers,  31,  35, 
82 

historical  origins  of  Brit- 
ish, 34 

Reformation  and  French 
revolution,  57,  75 

effect  of  prepossessions 
(witchcraft),  59 

need  for  destroying  false 
theories,  61,  63 

"argument  is  useless,"  79 

improvement  of,  will  pre- 
vent exploitation,  148 

President  of  Navy  League 
does  not  seek  to  improve 
ideas,  189 

Turkey  and  England,  dif- 
ference of  ideas,  207 

not  accepted,  afterwards 
put  into  practice,  225 

witchcraft,  steam-engine, 
226 

conceptions  must  be  re- 
cast, 227 


242 


Index 


Ideas — Continued 

new    political    philosophy 

wanted,  228 
See  also  Axioms,  Religious 
Beliefs 
India: 

Natal  and  British  Indians, 

xxviii 
Saint  and  defiled  food,  48 
Mrs.    Steele's    "Hosts    of 

the  Lord,"  49 
Britain's  "policing"  work, 
168,  170 
Indians,   American,   and  food 

supply,  xvii,  156 
Insurance  Act  not  passed  by 

force,  72 
Intangibility  of  wealth,  102 
Intentions,     national,     impos- 
sible to  foretell,  126,  215 
Interdependence : 

nullifies    effectiveness    of 

coercion,  xvii 
leaky  boat,  illustration,  18 
two  villages,  illustration,  19 
moral  and  intellectual,  in- 
tensified by  material,  35 
if    Britain    were   isolated, 

104 
a    modern    phenomenon, 

at  time  of  American  Civil 
War,  118 

at  time  of  Franco-Prussian 
War,  119 

of  France  and   Germany 
to-day,  129 

historical  sketch  of,  132 

See  also  Co-operation,  Di- 
vision of  Labour 
International  Politics: 

political  behaviour  deter- 
mined by  ideas,  x 

literature  obsolete,  21 

study  of,   should  not  be 
deprecated,  29 

moral  and  material  factors 
in,  38 

facts     obscured     by     old 
theories,  61 


the  danger   of  the   situa- 
tion, 95 
basis  changing,  100 
International     polity     move- 
ment, 208 
International  relations: 

"knowing     one     another 

better,"  xx 
moral  and  political  divi- 
sions not  coincident,  79 
have  entirely  changed 
their  basis,  104,  108,  131 
influence  of  credit  on,  86 
founded  on  co-operation, 

109 
the  physiocrats  and  Brit- 
ain's changed  attitude, 
117 
can  only  be  improved  by 
better      understanding, 
177 
understanding     the    only 

means  of  security,  195 
improvement      in      ideas 
wanted,  207 
Intuition  and  reason,  56 

an  analogy  from  music,  56 
Investments,  foreign,  of  France, 

130 
Irrelevance  of  war,  211,  220 
Isolation,  national: 

in  former  times,  104 
what  effect  would  be  to- 
day? no 

Jordan,  Dr.  David  Starr,  xlix 

Krupp's  and  French  Press,  192 

Labour,  division  of.   See   Divi- 
sion of  Labour 
Law: 

of  acceleration.  See  Accel- 
eration 
justifies  self-defence,  69 
forbids    use   of    force   by 

individuals,  69 
r6le  of  force  behind  the  law, 
70 


Index 


243 


Law,  Mr.  Bonar,  171 

Lea,  Homer,  xliii 

Lloyd  George,  Mr.,  address  at 

Mansion  House  (1913),  127 
Locke's  conception  of  Society, 

9 

"Logic-chopping  not  without 
value,  58 

Loot,  ancient  and  modern  con- 
ditions, 100 

Loyalty  transferred  from  chief 
to  community,  51 

Luther,  international  influence 
of,  32 

Mahan,  Admiral,  97,  152,  183 
"nations    act    from    self- 
interest,"  II 
"nations  do  not  act  from 

self-interest,"  47,  153 
nations     are     commercial 

corporations,  163 
naval  power  and  commer- 
cial needs,  181 
Man  in   the  street,   mind  of, 

223 
Manchester  Guardian,  letter  to, 

222 
Manchester  School,  225 
Markets : 

exclusive,  more  lost  than 

gained,  109 
the  monopolist  system  of 
Spain,  112 
Marshall,  Professor,  definition 

of  economics,  41 
Marx,  Karl,  his  influence,  32 
Mercantile  theory,  112 
Mexico,  70 
Militarism : 

and  Government,  xxvi 
militarists      and      human 

nature,  xxxviii 
and  civilism  defined,  xxxix 
in  foreign  and  home  affairs, 

xli 
fundamental  assumptions, 

xl,  xlii 
place  of  military  force  in 
statecraft,  149 


militarism    the  enemy  of 

nationality,  78 
militarists     and     Garton 

Foundation,  225 
See  also  Force,  Navy 
Misconceptions.     See  Ideas 
Mistaken  identity,  case  of,  209, 

210,  211,  212,  225 
"Money-lender's     gospel,  a," 

136 
Montaigne     and     witchcraft, 

226 
Moral     conceptions    not     the 

issues,  171 
Moral  motives  for  war,  what 

are  they?  79 
Moral  possessions  safe  against 
force,  80 
cannot    be    protected    by 
force,  xxi,  xxix 
Morality  and  self-interest,  38 
Dr.  Evans  Derby  on,  40 
"moral"  notes  "for  gen- 
eral good,"  44 
must    coincide,    45,    137, 

140 
a  false  dilemma,  46,  137 
are  commercial  considera- 
tions "sordid"?  134 
See   Conduct,    Ideals, 
Ideas 
Morocco  incidents,  124 
Municipal  areas,  size  of,  and 

wealth  of  citizens,  163 
Murray,    Major    Stewart,    on 
peace  by  armed  force,  10 

Napoleon : 

interdependence   slight  in 
his  day,  116 
National  Review,  the,  154,  216 
Nationalism : 

interests    of    one's    own 
countrymen     preferred, 

25 
Nationality,  150 

desire  to  destroy  nation- 
ality makes  war,  78 
Polish  and  Alsatian,  78 
National  Service  League,  183 


244 


Index 


Nations: 

not    sovereign    nor    inde- 
pendent, XV 
not  economic  units,  23,  45, 

64     .       . 
belief   in    rivalry    induces 

war,  24 
interchangeof  ideas  among, 

32  .  . 

foreign  origin  of  national 
greatness,  34 

seH-interest  of,  not  im- 
moral, 40 

interests  of  a  nation  de- 
fined, 41 

impossible  to  "love"  or 
"hate"  a  nation,  64 

moral  and  political  divi- 
sions not  coincident,  78, 

^3.1 

relationship  has  entirely 
changed,  104 

historical  sketch  of  changed 
relations,  106 

Hume  and  Smith  on  Inter- 
dependence, 116 

impossible  to  foretell  "na- 
tional" actions,  125,  215 

are  administrative  areas, 

163 

See  also   States,    Govern- 
ments, International 
Nature: 

our  war  with,  xxxiii,  9,  13, 

16,  170 
are  we  blind  slaves  of?  xlii 
See  also  Struggle 
Navy: 

superiority  of  British,  173 
and  question  of  attacking 

Germany,    180 
is    the    German    Navy    a 
luxury?  182 
Navy  League: 
British,  173 
German,  192 

why  are  the  two  not  con- 
ferring? 193 
Nervous  system,  social,  94, 115, 
123,  133 


Nevinson,  Mr.,  on  attack  and 

defence,  65 
Nicaragua,  71 
Novikow,  Jacques,  225 

Oppenheimer,  Sir  Francis,  122 
Orthodox    statecraft,    22,    62, 

63.  151 
Ostwald,  Prof.  Wilhelm,  36 

Pacifism,    diflFerence    between 

old  and  new,  54,  212 
Pacifists,  the  older: 

and  avoidance  of  suffering, 

5 

and  cessation  of  conflict,  6 
"war,    though    profitable, 

is  immoral, "  46 
accepted     militarist     pre- 
mises, 213,  220 
and  supposed  German  ag- 
gression, 217 
no  desire  to  belittle  their 
work,  225 
Panama,  194: 

"The    Paradox    of    Pan- 
ama," 200 
Panics,  how  they  arise,  213 
Parliament.     See  Government 
Passy,  Frederic,  225 
Patriotism : 

"discrediting  instincts  of," 

4 
should  dictate  spreading  of 
modern  national  ideas, 

35 
need  not  prevent  rational 

conceptions,  74 
false,  146,  147 
Peace: 

"depends  on  armed  force," 

9 

Mr.  Churchill  on  how  to 
secure,  62 

large  armaments  demand- 
ed in  cause  of,  63 

equivalent  effort  for  peace 
as  for  war  demanded, 
189,  205 

Cobden's  work  for,  195 


Index 


245 


Peace — Continued 

Anglo-American     Centen- 
ary, 196 
societies    and    change    in 
structure  of  society,  229 
Physiocrats,  the,  116,  117 
Piloty,  Prof.  Robert  T.,  36 
Plum-pudding,    nursery    story 

of,  104 
Poland,  Germany  and,  78,  80 
Policeman,  r6le  of,  68,  168 

armies  will  be  transformed 

to  police  forces,  169 
our  navy  "a  poUce  force, " 

174 
Policy  "is  foundation  of  success 
in  war, "  27,  149 
each  determines  its  action 
by  its  rival's  policy,  177 
Political : 

See      also      Astigmatism, 
Government    and    Na- 
tions 
units  and  economic  units 

do  not  coincide,  xxi 
conduct    contradicts    pri- 
vate actions,   xxx 
matters  receive  scant  at- 
tention, xxx 
philosophy,  new,  wanted, 
229 
Posterity,  our  urgent  need  to  do 

our  duty  to,  139 
Practical  Outcome,  The,  133 
Press  reinforces  localism,  29,  77 
Principles,    need    for    restate- 
ment of,  I 
"Psychological     Reserve"     of 

British  Banking,  138 
Public  Opinion: 

does  not  descend  from  out- 
side, 84 
how  it  may  be  modified, 

134 

enlightenment  of,  the  one 
ray  of  hope,  188 

change  of,  readily  under- 
taken for  other  causes, 
191-2 

See  also    Ideas,  Conduct 


Pugnacity : 

redirection  of,  106 
diminution    of,    in    tribes 
and  nations,  107-8 

Reasoning    "does    not    afifect 

conduct, "  55 
Reformation : 

r  e  1  i  gious    accomplished, 
political  yet  to  come,  36, 

58,  75,  83 
See  Ideas 
Religious     beliefs     and     war, 
xxxviii,  58 
Crimean  War,  xxiii 
disappearance  of  religious 
wars,  75,  83,  158,  167, 
230 
"Rifleman,  a,"  153 
Right  of  capture  at  sea,  183 
Risks  of  war  and  of  industry, 

4 
Roberts,  Lord,  192,  214,  217 
on    maritime    power    and 

commerce,  62,  154 
on  Germany's  "excellent 
pohcy, "  69,  222 
Roman   influence   on    modern 

thought,  63 
Royal  United  Service  Institu- 
tion, address  at,  149 
RufBni,    "Religious   Liberty," 

230 
Rushe-Bagehot  treaty,  196 
Russia: 

Germany  profits  by  French 

aid  to,  128 
Crimean  War,   170 

St.  Bartholomew,  massacre  of, 

xxxviii,  58,  75 
Safety,  national: 

effect  of  new  ideas  on,  4 
Salisbury,  Lord,  xxxi 
Schucking,  Prof.  Walter,  36 
Science,  internationalism  of,  33 
Self-defence.    See  Defence 
Self-government : 

classic    diplomatists    d  e  - 
spise,  9 


246 


Index 


Self-interest  and  morality.  See 

Morality 
Self-sacrifice,  aimless,  49 
Sensory-nerves     social.      See 

Nervous  system 
Sincerity  of  intuitionalist  and 

rationalist,  57 
Slavery: 

economic     case     against, 

xxxiv,  14 
modified  to  serfdom,  xvii, 
107 
Smith,  Adam,  116 
Socialism    not     "British"    or 

"German,"  83 
Society: 

security  based  on  cancel- 
lation of  force,  xxiv 
social    forces    less    visible 

than  military,  xxxi 
diplomatists'  ideas  on  basis 

of,  8 
mechanism  and  principles 

of,  9,  133 
forbids    use    of    force    by 

individuals,  68 
banking  furnishes  sensory 

nerves,  94 
"competition  the  basis," 

("Rifleman"),  153 
See  also  Government,  In- 
terdependence 
Soldier,  the  profession  of  a,  171 
Soldier    or    Policeman.      See 

Policeman 
South  Africa: 

Natal  and  British  Indians, 
xxviii 
South  America.     See  America, 

South 
Spain: 

and  South  America,  109 
failure     o  f     exploitation, 
112 
"Spectator,  The,"  xxxix 
Spiritual  impulses.     See  Ideals 
Statecraft: 

Dr.  David  Jayne  Hill  on,  8 

orthodox,  assumes  nations 

act  from  interest,  11 


changes  in  communication 
overlooked,  21 

axioms  of,  97 

occasion  of  Britain's  re- 
formed views  on,  118 

"Place  of  Military  Force 
in  Modern,"  149 

judged  by  its  fruits,  170 

See     also     Axioms,     Dip- 
lomacy 
States: 

not  homogeneous,  xviii 

force  futile  as  between, 
xviii 

economic  and  political 
units  do  not  coincide, 
xix 

habit  of  thinking  in,  xxiii 

Dr.  Hill  on  diplomats' 
views  concerning,  8 

small  more  prosperous 
than  large,  23,  29 

not  persons  or  families, 
64,  168 

"World  Organization  and 
the  Modern  State, "  141 

exists  to  advance  well- 
being  of  citizens,  150 

is  conflict  necessary,  150 

formerly  sought  to  dictate 
religious  beliefs,  157 

"inevitable    conflict    of," 

"the   economic   executive 

of  its  citizens,  "162 
See  also   Government, 
Nations 
Stead,  Mr.,  and  "Two  Keels 

to  One,"  164 
Steele,    Mrs.,    "Hosts   of    the 

Lord, "  49 
Stengel,  Baron  von,  97,  152 
Storey,  General  John  P.,  xliii 
"Struggle    for    Bread,    The," 

153-  154.  157.  220 
Struggle  for  survival: 

survival     contingent     o  n 
cessation     of     struggle, 
xxxiii 
Homer  Lea  on,  xlii 


Index 


247 


Struggle  for  survival — Cont. 

always    ' '  other    nations ' ' 

who  want  to  struggle,  30 

war  kills  off  the  fittest,  63 

an  axiom  of  statecraft,  97 

Suffering,  avoidance  of,  4 

Sussex  ver5M5  Wessex,  156 

Sustenance.     See  Food 

Sweden: 

small  but  prosperous,  23 

Switzerland: 

her  foreign  visitors,  xxix 
small  but  prosperous,  23 

Terminology  obsolete,  xxxi 
Territory: 

conquest     of,    brings    no 

gain,  22 
early  occupation  of,  161 
See  also  Conquest 
"  Teutonic  waves, "  155 
Theories,  false  and  sound.     See 

Ideas 
Times,  the: 

telegram  from  Berlin,  123 
Tirpitz,  Admiral,  191 
Tolstoy,  55,  56 

Torture,   a   "European   tradi- 
tion," 136 
Trade,  foreign: 

independent    of    political 

dominion,  23 
international,   is  between 

individuals,  23 
multangular  course  of,  23, 

24,  165 
German,  built   up  on 
French    and    British 
money,  128 
no  distinctively  "British" 
or  "German"  trade,  164 
See    also   Commerce, 
Credit 
Transport,  improved  means  of, 

20,  158 
Tribute: 

why  exaction  is  unprofit- 
able, 23,  108 
Roman  legacy  of  ideas  on, 
63 


Turkey,  70,  207 

Crimean  war,  170 
"Two     Keels     to     One     not 

Enough,"  173 
Two  parties  to  a  dispute,  177-8 

United  States: 

British  attitude  toward 
the  civil  war,  118 

but  lately  Britain's 
enemy,  126,  147 

former  British  fears  of,  194 

Britain's  most  portentous 
rival,  194 

undefended  Canadian 
frontier,  195 

"The  Paradox  of  Pana- 
ma," 200 

impossibility  of  seriously 
injuring,  203 

Venezuela,  xxvii,  70,  74,  196 
Viking,   ancient  and   modern, 
100,  104 


War: 


conceptions  which  pro- 
duce, 9,  26 

"aggression  secures  ad- 
vantage," II 

success  "dependent  on 
policy,"  27,  149 

definition  of,  66 

defence  is  the  negation  of, 
66 

disappearance  of  religious, 

what  are  moral  motives 
for?  79 

and  "cosmopolitan  finan- 
ciers," 88 

danger  and  injury  of,  95 

what  are  the  impelling 
motives?  95 

"War  as  a  Capitalist  Ven- 
ture,"  144 

the  failure  of  human  wis- 
dom, 171 

is  a  matter  of  two  parties, 
177 


248 


Index 


War — Continued 

the  outcome  of  folly  and 

ignorance,  188 
what  the  preparation  for 

war  means,  190 
Panama    incident    shows 

failure  of  war,  204 
irrelevant,  211,  220 
less  wicked  than  formerly, 

212 
See   also   Force,   Military, 
Naval,  Struggle 
Waechter,  Herr  von  Kiderlein, 

and  France,  121 
Wealth: 

impossible    to    confiscate, 

102 


intangibility  of,  28,  81,  82, 

102 
not  a  fund  but  a  flow,  102, 

103 

paper  tokens  are  not  ac- 
tual wealth,  102 

Tartar  Khan  seizes  wealth 
of  subjects,  108 

"Welt  Politik,"  154 
Wehberg,  Dr.  Hans,  36 
Wessex  versus  Sussex,  156 
"Why  not  Fight?"  200 
Wilkinson, Professor  Spencer,28 
Witchcraft,  59,  226,  233 
Withers,  Mr.  Hartley,  138 

Zulu,reason  for  inferiority  of,  73 


Ji  Selection  from  the 
Catalogue  of 

G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS 


Complete  Catalogue  sent 
on  application 


"THE    GREAT    ILLUSION"    AND 
PUBLIC    OPINION 

AMERICA 

"  New  York  Times,"  March  12,  1911. 

"A  book  which  has  compelled  thought;  a  book  full  of  real  ideas 
deserves  the  welcome  it  has  received.  The  author  is  enjoying  the 
almost  unlimited  praise  of  his  contemporaries,  expressed  or  indicated 
by  many  men  of  eminence  and  influence,  by  countless  reviewers  who 
have  lately  hungered  for  a  hero  to  worship. 

"Moreover  .  .  .  it  certainly  makes  for  genuine  aesthetic  pleasure, 
and  that  is  all  most  of  us  ask  of  a  book. " 

"  The  Evening  Post,"  Chicago  (Mr.  Floyd  Dell),  February  17, 191 1. 

"The  book,  being  read,  does  not  simply  satisfy  curiosity;  it  dis- 
turbs and  amazes.  It  is  not,  as  one  would  expect,  a  striking  expres- 
sion of  some  familiar  objections  to  war.  It  is  instead — it  appears  to 
be — a  new  contribution  to  thought,  a  revolutionary  work  of  the  first 
importance,  a  complete  shattering  of  conventional  ideas  about 
international  politics ;  something  corresponding  to  the  epoch-making 
'  Origin  of  Species"  in  the  realm  of  biology. 

"AH  of  this  it  appears  to  be.  One  says  'appears,'  not  because  the 
book  fails  completely  to  convince,  but  because  it  convinces  so  fully. 
The  paradox  is  so  perfect  there  must  be  something  wrong  about  it ! .  . . 

"At  first  glance  the  statement  which  forms  the  basis  of  the  book 
looks  rather  absurd,  but  before  it  is  finished  it  seems  a  self-evident 
proposition.  It  is  certainly  a  proposition  which,  if  proved,  will 
provide  a  materialistic  common-sense  basis  for  disarmament.  .  .  . 

"There  is  subject-matter  here  for  ironic  contemplation.  Mr. 
Angell  gives  the  reader  no  chance  to  imagine  that  these  things  '  just 
happened.'     He  shows  why  they  happened  and  had  to  happen. 

"One  returns  again  and  again  to  the  arguments,  looking  to  find 
some  fallacy  in  them.  Not  finding  them,  one  stares  wonderingly 
ahead  into  the  future,  where  the  book  seems  to  cast  its  portentous 
shadow. " 

"  Boston  Herald,"  January  21, 191 1. 

"This  is  an  epoch-making  book,  which  should  be  in  the  hands  of 
everyone  who  has  even  the  slightest  interest  in  human  progress.  .  .  . 
His  criticism  is  not  only  masterly — it  is  overwhelming;  for  though 


"THE  GREAT  ILLUSION"  AND  PUBLIC  OPINION 

controversy  will  arise  on  some  of  the  details,  the  main  argument  is 
irrefutable.  He  has  worked  it  out  with  a  grasp  of  the  evidence  and  a 
relentlessness  of  logic  that  will  give  life  and  meaning  to  his  book  for 
many  a  year  to  come. " 

"  Life  "  (New  York). 

"An  inquiry  into  the  nature  and  history  of  the  forces  that  have 
shaped  and  are  shaping  our  social  development  that  throws  more 
light  upon  the  meaning  and  the  probable  outcome  of  the  so-called 
'war  upon  war'  than  all  that  has  been  written  and  published  upon 
both  sides  put  together.  The  incontrovertible  service  that  Mr. 
Angell  has  rendered  us  in  '  The  Great  Illusion '  is  to  have  introduced 
intellectual  order  into  an  emotional  chaos." 


GREAT  BRITAIN. 

"  Daily  Mail." 

"No  book  has  attracted  wider  attention  or  has  done  more  to 
stimulate  thought  in  the  present  century  than  'The  Great  Illusion.' 
Published  obscurely,  and  the  work  of  an  unknown  writer,  it  gradually 
forced  its  way  to  the  front.  .  .  .  Has  become  a  significant  factor  in 
the  present  discussion  of  armaments  and  arbitration." 

"  Nation." 

"  No  piece  of  political  thinking  has  in  recent  years  more  stirred  the 
world  which  controls  the  movement  of  politics.  ...  A  fervour,  a 
simplicity,  and  a  force  which  no  political  writer  of  our  generation  has 
equalled  .  .  .  rank  its  author,  with  Cobden,  among  the  greatest  of 
our  pamphleteers,  perhaps  the  greatest  since  Swift. " 

"  Edinburgh  Review." 

"Mr.  Angell's  main  thesis  cannot  be  disputed,  and  when  the  facts 
.  .  .  are  fully  realized,  there  will  be  another  diplomatic  revolution 
more  fundamental  than  that  of  1756." 

"  Daily  News." 

"So  simple  were  the  questions  he  asked,  so  unshakable  the  facts 
of  his  reply,  so  enormous  and  dangerous  the  popular  illusion  which  he 
exposed,  that  the  book  not  only  caused  a  sensation  in  reading  circles, 
but  also,  as  we  know,  greatly  moved  certain  persons  high-placed  in 
the  political  world. 

"The  critics  have  failed  to  find  a  serious  flaw  in  Norman  Angell's 
logical,  coherent,  masterly  analysis. " 


"  THE  GREAT  ILLUSION  "  AND  PUBLIC  OPINION 

Sir  Frank  Lascelles  (formerly  British  Ambassador  at  Berlin)  in 
Speech  at  Glasgow,  January  29, 1912. 

"While  I  was  staying  with  the  late  King,  his  Majesty  referred  me 
to  a  book  which  had  then  been  published  by  Norman  Angell,  entitled 
'The  Great  Illusion.'  I  read  the  book,  and  while  I  think  that  at 
present  it  is  not  a  question  of  practical  politics,  I  am  convinced  that 
it  will  change  the  thought  of  the  world  in  the  future. " 

R.  A.  Scott  James  in  "  The  Influence  of  the  Press." 

"  Norman  Angel  in  recent  years  has  done  more  probably  than 
any  other  European  to  frustrate  war,  to  prove  that  it  is  unprofit- 
able.  He  was  probably  the  guiding  spirit  behind  the  diplomacy 
which  checked  the  Great  Powers  from  rushing  into  the  Balkan 
conflict," 

J.  W.  Graham,  M.A.,  in  "  Evolution  and  Empire." 

"Norman  Angell  has  placed  the  world  in  his  debt  and  initiated  a 
new  epoch  of  thought.  .  .  .  It  is  doubtful  whether  since  the 'Origin 
of  Species'  so  many  bubbles  have  been  burst,  and  so  definitely  plain 
a  step  in  thought  been  made,  by  any  single  book. " 

Mr.  Harold  Begbie  in  the  "  Daily  Chronicle." 

"  A  new  idea  is  suddenly  thrust  upon  the  minds  of  men.  ...  It  is 
hardly  an  exaggeration  to  say  that  this  book  does  more  to  fill  the  mind 
with  the  intolerable  weight  of  war,  to  convince  the  reasonable  mind 
.  .  .  than  all  the  moral  and  eloquent  appeals  of  Tolstoy.  .  .  .  The 
wisest  piece  of  writing  on  the  side  of  peace  extant  in  the  world  to- 
day." 

"  Birmingham  Post." 

"  'The  Great  Illusion,'  by  sheer  force,  originality,  and  indisputable 
logic,  has  won  its  way  steadily  forward,  and  made  its  author  a  person 
to  be  quoted  by  statesmen  and  diplomatists  not  only  in  England,  but 
in  France,  Germany,  and  America. " 

"  Glasgow  News." 

"If  only  for  the  daring  with  which  Mr.  Angell's  extraordinary 
book  declares  that  the  accepted  ideas  are  so  much  moonshine,  it 
would  be  a  work  to  attract  attention.  When  we  add  that  Mr. 
Angell  makes  out  a  decidedly  brilliant  and  arresting  case  for  his 
contention,  we  have  said  sufficient  to  indicate  that  it  is  worth  perusal 
by  the  most  serious  type  of  reader. " 


"THE  GREAT  ILLUSION"  AND  PUBLIC  OPINION 

"  The  Western  Mail.»' 

"A  novel,  bold,  and  startling  theory." 


MILITARY  OPINION. 

"  Army  and  Navy  Journal "  (N.  Y.),  October  5,  1910. 

"If  all  anti-militarists  could  argue  for  their  cause  with  the  candour 
and  fairness  of  Norman  Angell  we  should  welcome  them,  not  with 
'bloody  hands  to  hospitable  graves,'  but  to  a  warm  and  cheery 
intellectual  comradeship.  Mr.  Angell  has  packed  away  in  his  book 
more  common  sense  than  peace  societies  have  given  birth  to  in  all 
the  years  of  their  existence.  .  .  ." 

"United  Service  Magazine"  (London),  May,  191 1. 

"  It  is  an  extraordinarily  clearly  written  treatise  upon  an  absorbingly 
interesting  subject,  and  it  is  one  which  no  thinking  soldier  should 
neglect  to  study.  .  ,  .  Mr.  Angell's  book  is  much  to  be  commended 
in  this  respect.  It  contains  none  of  the  nauseating  sentiment  which 
is  normally  parasitic  to  'peace'  literature.  The  author  is  evidently 
careful  to  take  things  exactly  as  he  conceives  them  to  be,  and  to  work 
out  his  conclusions  without  'cleverness'  and  unobscured  by  technical 
language.  His  method  is  to  state  the  case  for  the  defence  (of  present- 
day  'militarist'  statecraft),  to  the  best  of  his  ability  in  one  chapter, 
calling  the  best  witnesses  he  can  find  and  putting  their  views  from 
every  standpoint  so  clearly  that  even  one  who  was  beforehand  quite 
ignorant  of  the  subject  cannot  fail  to  understand.  Mr.  Angell's 
book  is  one  which  all  citizens  would  do  well  to  read,  and  read  right 
through.  It  has  the  clearness  of  vision  and  the  sparkling  conciseness 
which  one  associates  with  Swift  at  his  best." 

"  The  Army  Service  Corps  Quarterly "   (Aldershot,  England), 
April,  191 1. 

"The  ideas  are  so  original  and  clever,  and  in  places  are  argued 
with  so  much  force  and  common  sense,  that  they  cannot  be  pushed 
aside  at  once  as  preposterous.  .  .  .  There  is  food  here  for  profound 
study,  .  .  .  Above  all,  we  should  encourage  the  sale  of  '  The  Great 
Illusion'  abroad,  among  nations  likely  to  attack  us,  as  much  as 
possible." 

"  War  Office  Times  "  (London). 

"  Should  be  read  by  everyone  who  desires  to  comprehend  both  the 
strength  aad  the  weakness  of  this  country." 


"THE  GREAT  ILLUSION"  AND  PUBLIC  OPINION 

FINANCIAL  AND  ECONOMIC  AUTHORITIES. 

"  American  Journal  of  Political  Economy." 
"The  best  treatise  yet  written  on  the  economic  aspect  of  war. " 

"  American  Political  Science  Review." 

"It  may  be  doubted  whether  within  its  entire  range  the  peace 
literature  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  world  has  ever  produced  a  more  fas- 
cinating or  significant  study." 

"  Economist "  (London). 

"Nothing  has  ever  been  put  in  the  same  space  so  well  calculated  to 
set  plain  men  thinking  usefully  on  the  subject  of  expenditure  on 
armaments,  scare  and  war.  .  .  ,  The  result  of  the  publication  of 
this  book  has  been  within  the  past  month  or  two  quite  a  number  of 
rather  unlikely  conversions  to  the  cause  of  retrenchment." 

"  Investors'  Review  "  (London),  November  12,  1910. 

"No  book  we  have  read  for  years  has  so  interested  and  delighted 
us.  .  .  .  He  proceeds  to  argue,  and  to  prove,  that  conquests  do  not 
enrich  the  conqueror  under  modern  conditions  of  life.  .  .  .  The 
style  in  which  the  book  is  written — sincere,  transparent,  simple,  and 
now  and  then  charged  with  fine  touches  of  ironic  humour — make  it 
very  easy  to  read. " 

"  Economic  Review  "   (London). 

"  Civilization  will  some  day  acknowledge  a  deep  debt  of  gratitude 
to  Mr.  Norman  Angell  for  the  bold  and  searching  criticism  of  the 
fundamental  assumptions  of  modern  diplomacy  contained  in  his 
remarkable  book.  .  .  .  He  has  laid  his  fingers  upon  some  very  vital 
facts,  to  which  even  educated  opinion  has  hitherto  been  blind." 

"  Journal  des  Economistes." 

"Son  livre  sera  beaucoup  lu,  car  il  est  aussi  agr^ble  que  profond, 
et  il  donnera  beaucoup  k  refi^chir. " 

"  Export"  (Organ  des  Central vereins  fiir  Handelsgeographie). 

"By  reason  of  its  statement  of  the  case  against  war  in  terms  of 
practical  politics  and  commercial  advantage  (Real-  und  Handels- 
politikers),  the  keenness  and  the  mercilessness  of  the  logic  by  which 
the  author  explodes  the  errors  and  the  illusions  of  the  war  phantasists 
.  .  .  the  sense  of  reality,  the  force  with  which  he  settles  accounts 
point  by  point  with  the  militarists,  this  book  stands  alone.  It  is 
unique." 


"  THE  GREAT  ILLUSION  "  AND  PUBLIC  OPINION 

Dr.  Friedrich  Curtius. 

"The  book  will,  I  hope,  convince  everyone  that  in  our  time  the 
attempt  to  settle  industrial  and  commercial  conflicts  by  arms  is  an 
absurdity.  ...  I  doubt,  indeed,  whether  educated  folks  in  Ger- 
many entertain  this  '  illusion '  ...  or  the  idea  that  colonies  or  wealth 
can  be  'captured.'  ...  A  war  dictated  by  a  moral  idea,  the  only 
one  we  can  justify,  is  inconceivable  as  between  England  and  Ger- 
many." 

Dr.  Wilhelm  Ostwald,  who  has  occupied  chairs  in  several  German 
Universities,  as  well  as  at  Harvard  and  Columbia. 

"From  the  first  line  to  the  last  'The  Great  Illusion'  expresses  my 
own  opinions." 

Dr.  Sommer,  Member  of  the  Reichstag. 

"A  most  timely  work,  and  one  which  everyone,  be  he  statesman 
or  political  economist,  should  study  .  .  .  especially  if  he  desires  to 
understand  a  peace  ideal  which  is  practical  and  realizable.  .  .  . 
Without  agreeing  on  all  points,  I  admit  gladly  the  force  and  sugges- 
tiveness  of  the  thesis.  .  .  .  We  on  our  side  should  make  it  our 
business,  as  you  should  on  yours,  to  render  it  operative,  to  use  the 
means,  heretofore  unrealized,  of  joint  work  for  civilization.  In 
rendering  possible  such  joint  work,  Norman  Angell's  book  must  take 
a  foremost  place." 

Dr.  Max  Nordau. 

"If  the  destiny  of  people  were  settled  by  reason  and  interest,  the 
influence  of  such  a  book  would  be  decisive.  .  .  .  The  book  will 
convince  the  far-seeing  minority,  who  will  spread  the  truth,  and  thus 
slowly  conquer  the  world." 

Dr.  Albert  Suedekum,  Member  of  the  Reichstag,  author  of  several 

works  on  municipal  government,  editor  of  Municipal  Year- 

Books,  etc. 

"I  consider  the  book  an  invaluable  contribution  to  the  better 
understanding  of  the  real  basis  of  international  peace. " 

Dr.  Otto  Mugdan,  Member  of  the  Reichstag,  Member  of  the  National 
Loan  Commission,  Chairman  of  the  Audit  Commission,  etc. 

"The  demonstration  of  the  financial  interdependence  of  modern 
civilized  nations,  and  the  economic  futility  of  conquest,  could  not  be 
made  more  irrefutably. " 

Professor  A.  von  Harder. 

"I  agree  that  It  is  a  mistake  to  wait  for  action  as  between  govern- 
ments; far  better,  as  Jaur&s  proved  the  other  day  in  the  French 
Chamber,  for  the  peoples  to  co-operate.  .  .  .  The  book  should  be 
widely  circulated  in  Germany,  where  so  many  are  still  of  opinion  that 
heavy  armaments  are  an  absolute  necessity  for  self-defence. " 


"THE  GREAT  ILLUSION"  AND  PUBLIC  OPINION 

BRITISH  COLONIAL  OPINION. 

W.  M.  Hughes,  Acting  Premier  of  Australia,  in  a  letter  to  the 
"  Sydney  Telegraph." 

"  It  is  a  great  book,  a  glorious  book  to  read.  It  is  a  book  pregnant 
with  the  brightest  promise  to  the  future  of  civiUzed  man.  Peace — 
not  the  timid,  shrinking  figure  of  The'jHague,  cowering  under  the 
sinister  shadow  of  six  million  bayonets — appears  at  length  as  an 
ideal  possible  of  realization  in  our  own  time." 

Sir  George  Reid,  Australian  High  Commissioner  in  London  (Sphinx 
Club  Banquet,  May  5,  191 1). 

"I  regard  the  author  of  this  book  as  having  rendered  one  of  the 
greatest  services  ever  rendered  by  the  writer  of  a  book  to  the  human 
race.  Well,  I  will  be  very  cautious  indeed — one  of  the  greatest 
services  which  any  author  has  rendered  during  the  past  hundred 
years." 


FRANCE  AND  BELGIUM. 

M.  Anatole  France  in  "  The  English  Review,"  August,  1913. 

"One  cannot  weigh  too  deeply  the  reflections  of  this  ably 
reasoned  work." 

"  La  Petite  Republique  "  (M.  Henri  Turot),  17  Decembre,  1910. 

"  J'estime,  pour  ma  part,  'La  Grande  Illusion'  doit  avoir,  au  point 
de  vue  de  la  conception  moderne  de  l'6conomie  politique  interna- 
tionale,  un  retentissement  egal  a  celui  qu'eut,  en  mati^re  biologique, 
la  publication,  par  Darwin,  de  'I'Origine  des  espfcces.'j 

"C'est  que  M.  Norman  Angell  joint  k  I'originalit^  de  la  pens^  le 
courage  de  toutes  les  franchises,  qu'il  unit  k  une  prodigieuse  Erudition 
la  lucidity  d'esprit  et  la  m^thode  qui  font  jaillir  la  loi  scientifique 
de  I'ensemble  des  6venements  observes. " 


"  Revue  Bleu,"  Mai,  1911. 

"Fortement  6tay^s,  ses  propositions  dmanent  d'un  esprit  sin- 
guliferement  r^aliste,  ^galement  inform^  et  clairvoyant,  qui  met 
une  connaissance  des  affaires  et  une  dialectique  concise  au  service 
d'une  conviction,  aussi  passionn6e  que  g6n6reuse. " 


"THE  GREAT  ILLUSION"  AND  PUBLIC  OPINION 

M.  Jean  Jaures,  during  debate  in  French  Chamber  of  Deputies, 
January  13,  1911;  see  Journal  Oflficiel,  14  Janvier,  1911. 

"II  a  paru,  il  y  a  peu  de  temps,  un  livre  anglais  de  M.  Norman 
Angell,  'La  Grande  Illusion,'  qui  a  produit  un  grand  effet  en  Angle- 
terre.  Dans  les  quelques  jours  que  j'ai  passfe  de  I'autre  c6t6  du 
d^troit,  j'ai  vu,  dans  les  reunions  populaires,  toutes  les  fois  qu'il  6tait 
fait  mention  de  ce  livre,  les  applaudissements  6clater. " 


GERMANY  AND  AUSTRIA. 

"  Kolnische   Zeitxing." 

"Never  before  has  the  peace  question  been  dealt  with  by  so  bold, 
novel,  and  clear  a  method;  never  before  has  the  financial  interde- 
pendence of  nations  been  shown  with  such  precision.  ...  It  is 
refreshing  to  have  demonstrated  in  this  unsentimental,  practical 
way  the  fact  that  as  our  financial  interdependence  increases  war  as  a 
business  venture  necessarily  becomes  more  and  more  unprofitable." 

"  Der  Turmer  "  (Stuttgart). 

"This  demonstration  should  clear  the  air  like  a  thunderstorm.  .  .  . 
It  is  not  because  the  book  brilliantly  expresses  what  are  in  many 
respects  our  own  views  that  we  urge  its  importance,  but  because  of 
its  unanswerable  demonstration  of  the  futility  of  military  power  in 
the  economic  field." 

"  Konigsberger  Allgemeine  Zeitung." 

"This  book  proves  absolutely  that  conquest  as  a  means  of  material 
gain  has  become  an  impossibility.  .  .  .  The  author  shows  that  the 
factors  of  the  whole  problem  have  been  profoundly  modified  within 
the  past  forty  years." 

"  Ethische  Kultur  "  (Berlin). 

"  Never  has  militarism  been  combated  by  economic  weapons  with 
the  skill  shown  by  Norman  Angell.  ...  So  broad  and  comprehen- 
sive a  grasp  of  the  moral  as  well  as  the  economic  force,  that  the  book 
is  a  real  pleasure  to  read.  .  .  .  The  time  was  ripe  for  a  man  with  this 
keenness  of  vision  to  come  forward  and  prove  in  this  flawless  way 
that  military  power  has  nothing  to  do  with  national  prosperity." 

Professor  Karl  von  Bar,  the  authority  on  International  and  Criminal 
Law,  Privy  Councillor,  etc. 

"Particularly  do  I  agree  with  the  author  in  these  two  points:  (i) 
That  in  the  present  condition  of  organized  society  the  attempt  of  one 
nation  to  destroy  the  commerce  or  industry  of  another  must  damage 
the  victor  more  perhaps  than  the  vanquished;  and  (2)  that  physical 
force  is  a  constantly  diminishing  factor  in  human  affairs.  The 
rising  generation  seems  to  be  realizing  this  more  and  more, " 


RETURN 


COLLEGE  LIBRARY,  UCLA 


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